Anthony Onesto delivers a short "daily burst" video advising startup employees and hires not to overvalue stock options. Drawing on his HR experience and personal encounters with options that yielded little, he recommends evaluating compensation holistically—prioritizing competitive base salary and considering bonuses, commissions, and cash—rather than relying heavily on equity. He also notes modern job-seekers are better educated about options than in past booms.
Chapters
Everyone, it's Anthony Onesto and here's my daily burst of knowledge for Friday the 13th. So today I want to talk about stock options, right? So having been in the head of HR for many different startup companies and actually being a recipient of stock options, it was an actually a very attractive piece of a compensation structure. And in startups many, many moons ago, especially during the dot com boom where you thought you could join any company and become a multi gajillionaire and I think we're feeling some of that today. Again, not as big as a bubble, but I won't overinflate the value of stock options. I've been in many different startups and have received options as part of my options package and my compensation package and I have nothing to show for it. So don't overvalue the stock options. It makes them an owner, makes them feel like they're piece of the mission. But think about compensation from base salary. Be competitive. I know a lot of startups are cash strapped, but you know, investing in people for a startup is a very important piece. And then think about the entire compensation package, whether it's bonuses or sales. Again, if you have that kind of equity and money in the bank. But don't rely too heavily. And people are more educated these days about stock options than they were many years ago. So you have the most educated workforce and talent acquisition workforce in history. So don't overvalue your stock option package and make sure you think of it holistically across base bonus commissions, whatever it is you're looking at. So that's my daily burst for today. Friday the 13th. Be well, have a good weekend. See you on Monday.
