Confused and paper rich

I wrote about Post CoVid-19: The new normal about a month ago in mid-March followed by a couple posts on some predictions for the new normal. I read an article on CNN titled America’s ‘new normal’ will be anything but ordinary. People who think things will return to as they were before coronavirus need to reset their expectations. This will be a long road to recovery and even when a vaccine is available, we’ll probably still be in masks every winter and bumping elbows instead of shaking hands.

On to the next…

Despite being in the business of helping startup employees and founders with their stock options, I really don’t write about stock options much on this blog. I suspect that it’s because I spend my day job writing and talking about stock options all day, and by the time I get to writing here all I want to do is talk about something else.

It’s always funny when I try to explain to people in the startup world what I do. I’ve been having a lot of Zoom happy hours with Sophia’s friends and the conversation inevitable comes up. I’ve gotten my general 1000 feet in the sky pitch down, but I always run into trouble when people start asking questions and get curious. What’s so complicated about stock options that a company like yours needs to exist?

Well…. stock options are inherently very complicated. They touch on pretty much every aspect of finance: investing, taxes, valuation, portfolio management, etc. Experts in each one of these topics alone get paid a lot of money to specialize in these fields. Combine them together into one great financial product called a stock option and you have a perfect storm.

Did I also mention that information isn’t readily available in the private space to make informed decisions? Yes, companies seldom provide financials, data, or offering any help whatsoever so their employees can make the best decision.

If my friends haven’t hung up on me yet by the time I get done explaining the above, they usually change the subject really quickly.

A client said to me the other day that she’s sick of of stock options cause they’re confusing as all hell and at the end of the day it’s paper money. I laughed and told her that she’s right, but it’s paper money that may be worth a large chunk of your net worth one day.