TLDR Tech / Founders
Exercise windows should be longer
Startup options can turn into a bill the day an employee leaves. The usual 90-day window asks someone to pay the strike price and possibly taxes before they know whether the stock will ever be worth anything. That made more sense when startups exited in four to seven years, not today's 10 to 20 years. Backplanes gives people their tenure minus one year to exercise, while Craftwork gives them a full decade. If you use equity to recruit great people, make sure they can actually keep it.
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