News Nvidia’s stock surge mints new employee millionaires, but many can’t yet enjoy their wealth

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I don't see the problem. If you have stocks worth millions that are vested for 4 years, quit and take a part time job at a retailer or something else with low stress/working hour levels.
Cash in 4 years later and never have to work again.

I gladly quit my job right now if I had millions worth of stocks that I can cash in in 2029.
 
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Avro Arrow said:
I used to think that the Japanese were workaholics but it seems that the Americans passed them long ago.
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Not, the japanese business/ office culture is still worse in severity. America just spreads it to all industries so it averages out to be just as bad. And yes this is just a feeling versus hard numbers when comparing articles about japanese business men dying from overwork and knowing the overwork or american laborers and office folks.
 
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The article said:
Few companies in the tech industry share this same culture.
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Are you for real, dude? It varies, but many tech jobs are as stressful as Nvidia's, but without the awesome stock valuation. Particularly at startups. Most startups don't reach a "liquidity event", either. So, the big payday is anything but guaranteed.

The "great resignation" happened because many people stuck in these stressful jobs finally had a decent set of options and could escape.

The article said:
In fact, there has been a cliche for years of a “rest and vest” culture. In this situation, employees sit around and play video games while they wait for their stock packages to vest. Not so Nvidia, though, where such an employee would face shame and ridicule from colleagues and managers alike.
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Au contraire! This was reported on Toms', but I'm not finding it due to the site's poor search engine:

The article said:
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is known for fostering a culture of overworking, saying that he prefers to “torture (employees) into greatness” rather than fire them.
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Burn-out is a real thing. There need to be carrots and sticks to get the most out of people, but it's short-sighted to push them too far. I'd argue anyone using the word "torture", even in jest, is risking burnout. That could be part of the reason they had trouble with people coasting (see above).
 
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Heiro78 said:
Not, the japanese business/ office culture is still worse in severity. America just spreads it to all industries so it averages out to be just as bad. And yes this is just a feeling versus hard numbers when comparing articles about japanese business men dying from overwork and knowing the overwork or american laborers and office folks.
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American office culture just leaves us stuck at work when we shouldn't be. Over hiring in some scenarios but fearing cutting back payroll since that would mean less budget in the future. The big companies beholden to shareholders are the ones that do layoffs and other cost cutting measures. Having minimal vacation time or even accrual vacation time are all means to make people take less vacation, which means a lot of people sitting around when the workload is light. Of course we have industries like game development and software development that still seem to be in startup death march mode all the time.

Japanese culture hasn't gotten out of the 80s boom economy mindset. They still think more hours = more profit when that hasn't been true for a long time. They basically had infinite global and domestic demand which allowed them to sell everything they made from physical products to services in the aid of making physical products. When the rest of the world economy got up to speed they had market competition and the demand for Japanese goods plummeted in favor of cheaper Chinese goods and then Vietnam and India, and now Malaysia, and so on.
 
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Heiro78 said:
Not, the japanese business/ office culture is still worse in severity. America just spreads it to all industries so it averages out to be just as bad. And yes this is just a feeling versus hard numbers when comparing articles about japanese business men dying from overwork and knowing the overwork or american laborers and office folks.
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The difference is that Japanese corporations treat their employees like family while American firms just try to enslave them while giving them as little as possible.

Sure, back in the 20th-century, the Japanese had it way worse than the Americans but Japan has gotten better over time while the USA has gotten worse.
 
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vanadiel007 said:
I don't see the problem. If you have stocks worth millions that are vested for 4 years, quit and take a part time job at a retailer or something else with low stress/working hour levels.
Cash in 4 years later and never have to work again.

I gladly quit my job right now if I had millions worth of stocks that I can cash in in 2029.
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Pretty sure you have to stay employed at a company for vesting to happen. If you leave, you lose your shares that were given you, but aren’t fully vested. That’s why they are called golden handcuffs. This approach works really well to keep the most valued employees from job hopping because it’s always difficult to leave all that on the table.
 
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We don't really know enough about the vesting, which could be different from employee to employee, to determine anything from it in terms of what they can or not do.


I still take it, even it was 4 years, if it means I can retire a millionaire in 2029 latest.
 
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vanadiel007 said:
We don't really know enough about the vesting, which could be different from employee to employee, to determine anything from it in terms of what they can or not do.


I still take it, even it was 4 years, if it means I can retire a millionaire in 2029 latest.
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Again, it would be the exception if the person could just leave. Sure, they can work the four years, but they will likely accumulate more stock options in the meantime; that's how companies induce employees with this type of compensation to remain, by making them affirmatively turn down money to leave.
 
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Our office is next to NVIDIA. Some dude bought a Tesla Cybertruck a few weeks ago. They are so ugly. News flash, a lot of semiconductor people are working 7 days a week. Also when you have stock vesting you can't leave and come back. Once you leave your stock is gone. Handcuffs indeed.
 
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vanadiel007 said:
4 year vest is pretty common practice in big tech and other companies You get your chunks of stock annually or maybe every 6 months. If you leave the company for any reason you forfeit the rest of your stock and walk away from what you have not yet received. To boot, if you do well you get another chunk of bonus stock but can't touch it for yet another 6 or 12 months and it trickles in slowly over 4 years. Eventually you have several batches of stock that come in periodically often at the same time and if you should quit you are for sure walking away from 6 figures, maybe 250K-500K. Everyone retires one day so everyone will inevitably walk away from a big amount one day. Many work themselves to death and put their lives on hold for 4 years to make a large payday for 4 years before allowing themselves to interact with their families again (or start their own family). Often this is combnes with 'rank stacking' employees where managers are expected to always evaluate their staff and fire the bottom 5% every year - you know as extra motivation to work hard. Unsurprisingly this leads to resentment and a toxic work culture but you can almost certainly walk away in 4 years with $1M if you can survive. I have not worked at NVIDIA but I have worked in other big tech and been part of this grind and it kinda of sucks.
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joeer77 said:
Our office is next to NVIDIA. Some dude bought a Tesla Cybertruck a few weeks ago. They are so ugly. News flash, a lot of semiconductor people are working 7 days a week. Also when you have stock vesting you can't leave and come back. Once you leave your stock is gone. Handcuffs indeed.
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Yeah I started a job last year at a tech giant (not Nvidia) and received a nice sign on bonus and stock package. The stock vests in increments over 4 years but I really don't mind being handcuffed because a) I signed on as hourly so working 6 days a week = nice OT and b) I enjoy going to work. It's a stress free environment.

It's not rocket science... well... actually it is. 😀
 
bit_user said:
Holy cow! I've never heard of an hourly employee getting stock options!
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Amazon does... only for the highest level hourly employees. I'm one level below salary. By comparison... the employees starting out working in the warehouses are 3 levels below me.

Jassy is like 7 levels above me. 🤣
 
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Hm, couldn't they do something similar to short selling? I mean, if I know that I have X shares which I can sell in 4 years, I could borrow (and immediately sell) the same amount of shares with the obligation to return them in 4 years?
 
Droidfreak said:
Hm, couldn't they do something similar to short selling? I mean, if I know that I have X shares which I can sell in 4 years, I could borrow (and immediately sell) the same amount of shares with the obligation to return them in 4 years?
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I don't know if the stock option is transferable, but that would be only once it's vested. Before then, all you own is a piece of paper saying how many shares you'll be granted, when, and at what price, assuming you manage to stay employed for that long! Why does everyone here seem to assume the employee doesn't get fired or downsized, before then?

I guess you could always take out a big loan, with plans to pay it back using the proceeds of your stock sale, when you flip the option. However, not only does that assume you stay employed that long, but also that the stock price doesn't crash.

In case people didn't know, stock options get granted based on the stock price around the time the options are issued. Sometimes, they're priced a little below market, but it's still roughly what the market price is. By the time the option vests, the stock price could drop below the option price, which makes the option effectively worthless (i.e. because it'd cost you more to buy the stock than you could sell it for). When this happens, your options are said to be "under water".

It's not uncommon for companies to have retention problems and have to put in place a bonus plan or something, if there are a string of option grants during a long downturn of the stock, leaving many employees with worthless stock options.
 
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That is right. ^

My first round of stocks vest in a couple months. Right now I just have a list of number of shares and vest dates… nothing more.

What’s nice though is the stock has increased nicely since I started. At one point prior to the recent market sell off I was up over $25k which is a pretty solid amount of free money on top of my initial award for less than a year of service.

It’s down a little… but I’m still up overall. We’ll see where it’s at in 3 years. Being that it’s Amazon stock I’m not too concerned about losing money… I’m more interested in seeing how high it will go… because I know it will.
 
TeamRed2024 said:
My first round of stocks vest in a couple months. Right now I just have a list of number of shares and vest dates… nothing more.
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Get tax advice, before you do anything. There used to be a distinction between flipping same-day (taxed as regular income) vs. buying and holding overnight (taxed as short-term capital gains) vs. holding for a year or more (taxed as long-term capital gains). Tax laws have changed since I last had to "worry" about stock options.

One mistake I made was to buy and hold for too long. In my case, it would've been better just to hold overnight and sell the next day. That stock & the market were too volatile for a buy-and-hold approach.

If you don't have the money to purchase the options, there at least used to be some investment firms that would front you the money to flip them, but I don't know if that was only for a same-day flip. Otherwise, you might be able to get a short-term bank loan.

TeamRed2024 said:
Being that it’s Amazon stock I’m not too concerned about losing money… I’m more interested in seeing how high it will go… because I know it will.
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Nothing is for sure. A million things could happen that could wipe out your options. If I had it to do over again, I'd have flipped at least half of them, pretty much right when they vest. That's just me, though. Make your own decisions.
 
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DSzymborski said:
Again, it would be the exception if the person could just leave. Sure, they can work the four years, but they will likely accumulate more stock options in the meantime; that's how companies induce employees with this type of compensation to remain, by making them affirmatively turn down money to leave.
Click to expand...

I understand that. But if you can take your vested stocks and sell them in 4 years for millions, who cares about the stocks that are not vested yet. I sure would not.
Only people who need more will stay, the rest will retire and enjoy their lives.
 
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