Working for the start-up, what is your experience? what would you recommend?

[tggzzz]

There should, and normally would, have been zero tax liabililty in such a share split. The problem was HP did the split in such a way that some time elapsed between key events - and that time caused the taxable event. The split was tax neutral in the US, but not here.

Ah, I was going to speculate that there ought to have been a way for HP to avoid large tax liabilities for its employees. If big companies do this sort of thing you'd expect them to square it with the Revenue. Sounds like they screwed up.

I think HP UK did their best, and IIRC managed to get it treated as a capital gain rather than income, thus "gaining" the CGT threshold. The final news came out about a week before the end of the tax year, and many people sold shares before April 5th.

Back to start-ups. About 14 years ago I got hired by a start-up, one of their guys had an idea to do with distributed databases. It was a good one  to be fair but  Microsoft already had it in SQL Server before we'd got running. So did the company....

b) try to limp on with an overcomplicated and technically inferior product (though with a pretty GUI) while submitting to internecine squabbles between sales, management and development staff.

Yep, you guessed it - b) was the inevitable option 

WTF has to get its inspiration from somewhere.

[linux-works]

show of hands: how many here truly made out well on stock options at a startup?  was the amount you made close to a car purchase or home purchase value or was it just 'pay off a bunch of bills' level of money?

(Raises hand) like I said, I made enough to pay off my mortgage. Around £100,000 at the turn of the millennium. Carefully structured to minimise tax liability.

good for you!  nice to hear -someone- actually makes out well with stock options.  so, that's 2 people that I've heard of that did well.  still, not a very large number.  how many do you know, across various jobs you've had, that also did well this way?

in the silicon valley area, at least, its mostly a lie that you'll do well on stock.  even if the company does well, they often will let people go JUST as their options are about to vest.  seen it happen, also had it happen to me, so I know this is quite a common way of thinking, with, uhm, less-than-ethical executives.  ie, almost all of them, sad to say.   if they can get away with cutting you off, THEY WILL.  this is what sours me about stocks.   they can't jerk you around on your paycheck, but they certainly have many tricks they can pull to deny you of any stock value.

[calexanian]

These numbers may be out of date, but I doubt they have changes much. 1 in 2 businesses survive the first year. 1 in 3 become self sustaining in the first year. 1 in 5 begin generating revenue in the first 5 years. 1 in 10 become what that magazine would call a successful business. it was some ridiculous thing like only one in 100 businesses crack 1 million dollars of sales or something like that.

Like I said that was many years ago but I doubt the numbers have changed much.

[coppice]

What about your personal commitments, dependents?

Also your personal property   Don't leave anything in the office that you can't afford to lose, if you go to work one morning and find the doors locked.

Also make sure to file expense claims promptly, and don't travel on company business without a complete round trip set up in advance.