Introducing Kindle Oasis - <AUTHOR> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00REQKWGA <comment><USER2> I think the Oasis is for a different market than most people here. It started making sense to me once I looked at the math:

* The Oasis weighs less than my current Kindle Keyboard 3G, even with the Oasis case. The 3G device weighs 247 grams - the Oasis is 133g, plus 107g for the battery cover (240g total). Never mind that my Keyboard 3G case itself weighs another 225g!

* The Oasis is not the "thickest Kindle ever". At the thickest point of 0.33", it's still the same thickness a Kindle Keyboard 3G (0.335"). With a case, the Keyboard 3G was 0.75" thick!

* The Oasis and the Voyage are roughly the same price. The Voyage doesn't include a cover, and it costs $85 to add an Amazon premium leather cover. That makes it just $5 less than an Oasis.

Weight, size & battery life are important criteria for digital nomads or perpetual travellers. If you're trying to keep under a baggage weight limit, saving 225g can make a big difference. So if you're upgrading from a 5 year old device (that still works!), this is potentially a huge upgrade.

This isn't a device for everyone, in fact I'm still unsure I'll upgrade my 3G yet (I don't travel as often nowadays). But I can at least see how it could improve my life.

<comment><USER3> > If you're trying to keep under a baggage weight limit, > saving 225g can > make a big difference

I can't imagine the difference in weight will affect anyone. It'll be hand luggage or literally in your pocket. I've never had my hand luggage weighed.

£270 (£330 for the 3G model) for something which is essentially the same as a £110 device (it's laughable that anyone would pick up a Paperwhite and complain that it's too thick and/or heavy). Now that's a niche market.

I don't think this will sell very many, but I suspect its real purpose is to get people to consider buying a Voyage instead of a Paperwhite as they'll believe they're getting more of the cosmetic thrills of the Oasis without the stupid cost.

<comment><USER4> Saving half a pound (225g) on a backpacking trip is a enough that a frequent hiker would notice.

<comment><USER5> Some people do spend big bucks to cut out ounces for hiking/backpacking gear. I'm skeptical it's meaningful numbers in the context of a device like this.

<comment><USER6> you obviously haven't met any ultralight backpackers. Of course, I can't see any of them "lugging" around a kindle on their hikes because there's no way that extra "weight" is necessary

<comment><USER5> I do know ultralight backpackers. But, yes, I can't see them carrying a Kindle as opposed to _maybe_ some pages ripped out of a book :-) Maybe a certain class of long distance hikers but now we're getting into vanishingly small markets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Still 6 inches. I'm not sure why ebook readers standardized on that size, it feels too small at least to me.

Finally bought one last year and ended up choosing the Kobo H20 partly because of that - it's 6.8" which is not bad, but I suspect the sweet spot would probably be somewhere between 7 and 7.5.

Edit: for people looking for big readers (for technical books and such, where 6" is quite useless), the ones I'm aware of are the 8" Bookeen Cybook Ocean and the inkBOOK 8 (the later was still vaporware when I looked into it, not sure if it's available now).

<comment><USER8> Any input from lurking Kindle DX owners? Sounds like they are available around $200.

[http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=kindle+dx](http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=kindle+dx)

<comment><USER9> I had a DX. I found the PDF support to be useful, but too slow. It was difficult to use it as a reference device, but it worked ok for linear reading.

I migrated to iPads once the iPad 2 came out and never really looked back.

<comment><USER10> Same experience--PDF rendering was too slow even for a lot of linear reading. I remember once opening a statistical text (Springer has a lot of freely downloadable content if you're at a university). I think it was a Bayesian text with a plot showing model convergence. Because the graphic was a vector plot containing lots of line segments, the page would take several _minutes_ to render.

I loved the screen though. I'd love to have a DX sized reader with even the processing power of a raspberry pi. Actually, I'd love something with a keyboard cover that let me do emacs in the sunshine, but that's an altogether different story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was really looking forward to upgrade my paperwhite, but this is total disappointment. Almost 3x more $$ than paperwhite, but the very similar specs; LED lights are just fine on paperwhite, same DPI, same size, same touchscreen, absolutely nothing worth upgrading IMHO! Buttons are ok but never missed them, definitely not worth money. And I still can't read IT books on that 6" screen. What a shame. Amazon is without ideas, and money. Or paperwhite is simply good enough?

<comment><USER12> I really don't understand why they aren't targeting students that have to carry a ton of heavy textbooks. Why not target medical students with a product? Why just make a device with a screen that can only accommodate a novel?

<comment><USER13> Because e-readers are just really bad for textbooks. They work really only for things you want to read from start to finish (they work great for that though!). Paper textbooks are a lot better if you're flipping back and forth or trying to use it for reference.

<comment><USER14> If they outfit one with a bigger screen and greater processing power so switching pages is fast and it's easier to flip (unless I'm under the wrong impression and the page-lag for the paperwhite is because of the screen not the CPU) then you could have a superior referece platform. Multiple bookmarks, search functionality, cross-referece.

For my job I have to read a lot of datasheets. Ctrl-F works wonders and I have no ideea how I'd manage without it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll echo everything else: far too much money.

I felt like a chump for buying the Voyage weeks before the new Paperwhite came out with the same screen. The voyage is nice, but I would have gladly saved money with the PW3.

And that's at $200! The Oasis is definitely a tool for the really hardcore reader, or otherwise for the wealthy.

And frankly, I really like the Voyage case for setting it on tables or laying in bed.

<comment><USER16> This feels like Amazon putting out a new Kindle for the sake of... putting out a new Kindle to keep the product line looking fresh.

If this somehow knocks down the price for the Paperwhite, I'm all for it... so I can get a Paperwhite. :P

<comment><USER17> They did bring back physical buttons though. And the ergonomics have change significantly - for better or worse. I really think they're trying their best and not just trashing around products every x months...

And frankly, I've only owned one Kindle v4 and it's been going strong ever since, albeit I use it much less than before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My first thought when I say the buttons only on the right side were 'what if you're left handed!', but it seems they've thought of that:

 _" Comfortably turn the page with either the touch display or dedicated page turn buttons located on the front of the handgrip. Whether you choose to read with your left or right hand, Kindle Oasis automatically rotates the page orientation to match."_

Having said that, when using my Kindle I often switch from one hand to the other to accommodate things like picking up a cup, or one arm getting tired.

This is also a _lot_ more expensive that the Paperwhite, or even the Voyage. While the dual battery concept seems nice, I can't say battery life with my existing Kindle has ever been an issue... don't think I'll be upgrading.

<comment><USER19> The older Kindles, like the keyboard one I have, simply put the buttons on both sides. Seems like a more sensible solution. ;)

<comment><USER20> I don't think I've ever heard of anyone complaining of the buttons on both sides on the old kindles. I cannot understand why they chose to change something so obviously good.

<comment><USER18> Totally agree. Going by the excessive price, removing them from both sides certainly wasn't a cost decision!

<comment><USER18> Downvoter care to comment? Genuinely interested in what you find disagreeable!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The design and added features look nice, but it's hard to believe they're charging $289 -- well over twice the price of the Paperwhite, which is a great e-reader itself. Makes me wonder if this is an artificially high price point meant to drive sales of the Voyage, which now looks comparatively cheap at $199.

<comment><USER22> The price includes the cover. The Voyage price doesn't.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, but how many people really even _want_ a $90 cover? I don't use a cover at all, but when I did I sure as hell didn't drop $90 on one.

<comment><USER22> The cover doesn't cost $90, look:

Voyage ($200) + Premium leather cover ($85) = $285

The Oasis costs $290 with battery cover. You're paying for a more expensive Kindle and a cheaper cover :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> From what I can tell this is still micro-usb. What happened to the everything is type-c dream? Honestly that's probably the only thing that'll get me to upgrade from my current one as I just want the same damn connector for everything. (which I did for a while with micro-usb, but damnit, we are moving on in theory!)

<comment><USER25> Not only is it not type-c, it's still USB 2.0. I guess there's not much call for higher speed data transmission on a device intended to be loaded wirelessly.

<comment><USER26> Typical book is less than 1MB; loads in a fraction of a second at USB 2.0 speeds. Maybe a second if you've got USB 1.1. Really not worth optimizing.

Type C USB would be nice. On the other hand, I don't have _any_ type C USB connectors / sockets in my possession yet.

I'd really like a wireless recharging standard. Just toss your devices onto a surface and they charge overnight, it doesn't need to be fast.

<comment><USER27> Qi is that standard. Built in to lots of Androids now.

Only real issue with it is slow rate of charging. Not a problem for overnight recharges - but my phone still discharges when I'm using GPS + Bluetooth in my car's Qi holder.

<comment><USER28> > Qi is that standard

Unless you're at Starbucks, who have deployed Powermat/PMA. Even though Qi has vastly more support from phones and chargers (Toyota is even putting Qi in some cars), there's probably many more people who have actually used Powermat, just because of SBUX.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This solves the problem I am having with my kindle paperwhite -- difficult to read with one hand, often I hold it at the bottom with my thumb awkwardly sideways across the front to not invade the reading area, with my hand spread out across the back so it doesn't fall out of my hand. It gets tired after a while, so I end up switching hands, until eventually I have to put it down on a table, and then I am reading with my head down, which is also inefficient.

I hope this creates demand for a paperwhite attachment / cover that will achieve this same ergonomic design for those of us that don't feel like forking over that much money after only just buying their paperwhites.

<comment><USER30> Books are also difficult to read with one hand. I'm not sure if one hand is really important as a spec.

<comment><USER31> Ridiculous. Books also burn very easily, so apparently flammability should be an important spec of any e-reader.

<comment><USER32> Not a great analogy. The designed use-case for a book is to be held in your hands and read. Whereas burning is almost never desired, generally only happens if something goes awry.

Given that two-hand holding is the norm for paper books I would say single- hand holding isn't a terribly important spec for an e-reader. Maybe it's desirable for some, maybe not. I would definitely give up a little bit of single-hand holdability for a larger screen, someone in thread above pointed out the 8" Bookeen Cybook Ocean, which at $180 looks like a good Kindle alternative: [http://www.bookeen.com/en/cybook- ocean](http://www.bookeen.com/en/cybook-ocean)

<comment><USER33> Short of large hardcover books, I can't say I've ever read two-handed. Perhaps I have larger than normal hands. but every book I've ever owned (and most books I've checked out from various libraries) I read one handed.

I object greatly, and think that single handed holding is an extremely important spec. Far more important than some silly touch-screen.

But like books, we are all different. So I hope you enjoy your e-reader however you choose to read it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really wish they'd bring back the Kindle Developer Program in a better form than what it was. My Kindle is jailbroken, and software like KOReader [1] and KindleExplorer [2] have become must-haves. In the case of KOReader, the flexibility offered is just miles ahead of Amazon's stock reader app—even though reading is the central purpose of the device.

[1] [https://github.com/koreader/koreader](https://github.com/koreader/koreader)

[2] [http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206296](http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=206296)

<comment><USER35> Do you happen to know if there's any of these alternative reader apps for Kindle that'll sync ebook files from Dropbox?

<comment><USER34> Sorry, I don't know of any that do that directly.

KOReader can sync with Calibre on the desktop, so you could perhaps set that up as a passthrough. Or you could use something like BookDrop [1] or IFTTT that sends ebooks from Dropbox to the Kindle over Amazon's WhisperSync service. Those are stored in the "documents" folder on the Kindle, where KOReader could read them as well as the stock reader app.

[1] [https://getbookdrop.com/](https://getbookdrop.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is a huge disappointment. I'm kicking myself for not buying a Paperwhite when they were on sale last week. This was absolutely not worth waiting for. I wouldn't find this compelling if it were $20 more than the Voyage, much less $90 more.

<comment><USER37> They've been on sale at least 3 times this year. Hold tight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I still use some old Kindle from 2012, which was 80$ or so and had the best design.

I'd love to have the illuminated screen, but the 2012 one was the lightest, had physical page turning buttons on both sides and could be used by me as a left-handed person easily.

I will stick with my old Kindle until Amazon will make a remake of it.

<comment><USER39> Same here. Mine is the "keyboard kindle" with the physical page-turn buttons. My only regret is that I didn't buy the larger DX model while they had it, as the bigger screen is more useful for technical titles.

<comment><USER40> I've been wanting to buy a Digital Paper from Sony since it came out for technical articles / textbooks.

Overall, I think the product is worth the price (around $1000 last time I checked), but I have other things to spend the money on right now. It seems to be marketed towards legal firms (possibly a source of the high price), but I don't need the collaboration software.

<comment><USER41> The price has dropped to $800.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> >Our thinnest Kindle ever

*except for the half of the device that makes it the thickest Kindle ever

Almost as bad as HP advertising their new laptop as being as thin as a AAA battery: [http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/384/908/4/S3...](http://www.blogcdn.com/slideshows/images/slides/384/908/4/S3849084/slug/l/p1010313-1.jpg)

<comment><USER43> Per the specs on the store page, the thickness is 3.4-8.5 mm. This means that even at the thickest point, it is still thinner than the normal kindle (10.2 mm) and the paperwhite (9.1 mm), and slightly thicker than the voyage (7.6 mm).

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I don't really see the point of the charging cover. I have a 2 year old paperwhite and I charge it about once every two months.

That being said, I really like the new design. Glad they're embracing physical buttons.

<comment><USER45> > Glad they're embracing physical buttons

Re-embracing, more like it. I forget how old mine is, but it's from before the basic Kindles went to touchscreen. The side-mounted page flipping buttons are just about perfect. Throw in battery life of like six months of hard use on airplane mode and the non-glare screen that you can read outside on the beach in full sun, and it is just about a perfect e-reader.

I just wish they would resurrect the DX concept. I'd like to have a thin, light Kindle that was approximately letter-sized, for textbooks, programming books, etc. It'd probably also be a great fit for somebody like my dad, who's eyes are going bad - you can crank up the font size on 6" kindles, but then you only get a handful of words on a line.

<comment><USER46> _> The side-mounted page flipping buttons are just about perfect_

I completely agree. I've had a Kindle 3 keyboard with the physical page-turn buttons for nearly five years and although the new models might have sharper screens, the lack of physical buttons is an deal killer for me.

They also seem to have gone backwards with the form factor. The 3 screen is nearly flush with the bezel, which slopes away to the buttons at the edge and feels great in the hand. I've handled the newer versions and they're thicker and feel more clunky and cheap.

When you can replace the screen for $20 (replaced once) and the motherboard for $4 (replaced twice), it's kind of hard to justify upgrading, even after you break both by sitting on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I love my Kindle Voyage, but I after the new Paperwhite came out with the same resolution as the Voyage, I thought the Voyage was overpriced. At $90 more than the Voyage and 2.4x the price of the Paperwhite, I don't know who the target market for this Oasis is.

<comment><USER48> Do this have the same display as voyage and paperwhite? 300ppi

<comment><USER49> Same resolution but by the looks of it a different thinner display

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I have the Voyage but wish I would have gotten the Paperwhite instead as it is not worth the extra cost. The Voyage is also very buggy when trying to turn pages. There is no way I am paying even more for this new Kindle that looks to correct all the problems that the Voyage has with page turning.

<comment><USER51> I also have the Voyage, at the time the Paperwhite was a lower resolution so the Voyage was a better choice - but there is no question I'd buy the newer paperwhite now instead.

When you say the voyager is buggy when you try and turn pages what is the issue? I have a problem with the (stupid, hateful) haptic buttons. The ones on the right mostly both go backwards, periodically it works as expected. I thought this was a hardware fault, but maybe you are experiencing the same issue?

<comment><USER52> I'm not the guy you were originally asking, but I've had issues with page turns on my Voyager. I think it's a pagination ordering issue - if I've been reading on my phone, and then open my Kindle and sync to the location in the book where I left off at on my phone, the first manual page turn I make sometimes fails to match up perfectly.

As a for instance, if "the quick brown fox" is the last words on my current page, and I turn to the next page, I'd expect the first words to be "jumps over the lazy dog" but in this instance "jumps over the lazy dog" is typically somewhere mid page.

I've also had issues, again when syncing my position from a different device, where the location totally bugs out if I try to swipe back to the previous page. This happens infrequently, so I'm uncertain if there's any logic at play, but the location is often way off of where it should be when aiming for the previous page.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> £269 in the UK for the Wifi model which also has "special offers" (which is just advertising). Umm no thanks Amazon.

<comment><USER54> To avoid the ads, just leave it in airplane mode unless you're syncing. This has the added advantage of saving battery.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> While this is a bespoke reader, I like the price point of the $120 (often cheaper with frequent sales) Paperwhite. It's always with me, and relatively inexpensive and durable enough where I don't bulk it up with a case or sleeve.

Either $289 seems overkill for a single purpose device, or Amazon screwed up and provided too much value in the Paperwhite.

</comment><comment><USER55> Amazon sure has a problem pricing things. When they announced the Fire Phone I was all set to buy one out of plain curiosity, assuming it'd be priced at $299 -- then it came in at $699. Nope.

I have bought every iteration of Kindle (other than the large one they sold when they first came out). This one I might skip. $300 for the _same internals_ as the Voyage is steep. The only major changes are the form factor and a few more LEDs. I do like that it has physical buttons, but not $300 like.

e: Also chiming in that I probably would have bought it anyway had it had usb-c, but it doesn't, still stuck on micro.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've bought pretty much every previous generation of kindles, but don't see the point of this one.

The voyage is already quite expensive for an ereader, and an upgrade of questionable value over the Paperwhite, and this one is still more expensive, for hardly any benefit.

To put it more positively: The kindle paperwhite is amazing value for the price ;-)

<comment><USER57> I bought the Voyage when it first came out (moving form a paperwhite gen 1) and I thought it was _barely_ worth the upgrade then. Now that the paperwhite 3 is out with all of the features that I bought the voyage for, I don't see any reason to pay the extra for it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Interseting to see that the UK price is £269.99, and the US price is $289.99 (£203.95). Seems a steep price different, even accounting for VAT.

Edit: Wasn't taking into account Sales tax, it's not that bad actually

<comment><USER59> Usual caveats apply: U.S. sales tax is still to be added to that £204 figure, so it's not actually £204 for an American buying it.

Adding vat to your £204 figure takes us to about £245, so even if we assume that an American _does_ pay just £204 for it, it's only a £25 difference (~10%). It's not ideal, but it's actually not bad either --- I've seen that difference being much, much bigger in the past.

<comment><USER58> I was under the impression that online shops didn't get Sales tax (not sure where I heard that, thanks for clarifiying)

<comment><USER60> The answer to that is "it's complicated"

In California, you were, in theory, required to pay a "use tax" on any goods purchased from out-of state, that just happened to be equal to sales tax. The reality is that most consumers didn't do this, since the only way to get caught would be if they audited your return.

On top of that, if you maintained a commercial presence in the state you are shipping to, sales tax was required. So, any national retailer that also sells online had to charge sales tax.

Amazon was in a gray area where they had shipping warehouses, but not commercial offices in California. They ended up making some deal a couple of years ago where they would charge sales tax online. I'm not sure what Amazon got out of it though.

So you used to be able to illegally get away with buying online without sales tax in some circumstances, but it is no longer the case for Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I've owned a kindle paperwhite since 2013, it works fine tbh I don't feel the need to upgrade. Even the touted 10 LED backlight on the Oasis is meaningless to me, I never use the backlight on my Kindle as it is.

The thing that is frustrating me more and more about the Kindle (and e-readers in general) is the amount of books still not available as ebooks, I don't understand why publishing houses like Penguin books have such a mixed bag when it comes to having a Kindle offering for some titles.

<comment><USER62> > the amount of books still not available as ebooks

And the retarded pricing. Its regularly at the same or higher as mass paperback. Unless shipping costs have turned negative thats just bullsht.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a conspiracy theory going around that the nonsensical pricing for Kindle ebooks is caused by a strategy from the big publishers to make the Kindle less attractive. Their worst nightmare of an Amazon monopoly on digital distribution is becoming more and more a reality. Setting the price for Kindle editions unrealistically high is one way to fight that.

<comment><USER62> >There's a conspiracy theory going around that

Well something definitely is screw-y with the pricing so I'd consider that theory quite plausible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I already have a great portable e-book reader that's light enough to hold in my hand. It's my phone. And it's a sunk cost. Oh, and it's not locked to a single bookseller.

I spend all day reading text on screens; when it comes to recreational reading, why are my eyes suddenly so precious that they need a special display that's supposedly easy on them? Like, the rest of the day I'm beating them up or something? $500CAD is almost the up-front cost of a Nexus 6p. And when I get tired of reading Proust I can play Neko Atsume.

This is vesselmancy -- the same wayward urge that had fools plonking out for leatherbound copies of Encyclopedia Britannica as late as the '00s, when they could have -- should have -- known better.

The container has been abstracted. The value is not there anymore. Amazon is just doing arbitrage on the delayed response the background culture has to value migration. $60 leather case included indeed.

<comment><USER64> It's funny that you mention vesselmancy. As an early adopter of e-ink, I had to endure years of talk about how e-ink will never smell or feel like a real book. I'm the opposite of the person who ordered the leatherbound Encyclopedia Britannica. I bought an early ereader and put all my books in the attic!

Phone displays and computer screens are just fine for reading text, but the fact that you completely discount the value of e-ink makes me wonder if you've seen a recent e-ink display in person. The advantages really become apparent at the extremes: bright sunlight or dim rooms in the evening. Also, the ergonomics of reading on a phone or a computer are not great for books and long articles. It's no coincidence that e-readers tend to be about the size of paperback books. Tablets are better, but they are more expensive, more fragile and more power-hungry.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> _Augh_ \- I wish they'd stop making smaller kindles and go with another DX! Giving up all that screen space after having gained it is just painful.

I wouldn't mind a hard keyboard again either, but apparently the design meme nowadays is that keyboards are a terrible thing to be virtualized or omitted entirely. (Bitter? Me?)

</comment><comment><USER66> I've owned about 4 Kindles (always upgraded, never had one break), but I just don't see any reason to upgrade to this model, especially given the price.

I don't understand why they haven't included waterproofing yet. Or at least IP68 certification so you don't have to worry at the beach or by a pool.

</comment><comment><USER67> Wow, while I'm still disappointed that this doesn't support EPUB, I'm impressed by the feature set. It's clear that the team that did product design is really starting to understand book readers and their needs. The price-point seems to be targeting more dedicated readers it seems, especially with "luxury" offerings like leather covers. My only gripe is that a lot of the touted features will probably only be available for a select few books. It's good to see that even though the e-ink technology isn't maturing that much, the software integrations are increasing. Though personally I'd still go for a Kobo because of size and compatibility issues. Fingers crossed for that experimental color e-ink to ever make a debut...

</comment><comment><USER68> Ergonomically looks great. They have fixed one of the issue with Paperwhite by adding physical page turn buttons. I prefer to use my Kindle Keyboard instead of Paperwhite everywhere but in bed. Accidentally touching the screen or tapping on a link when you wanted to turn a page is just too annoying.

Now I wish that they had re-introduced Text-to-Speech feature, I would have bought it then. At present, I think it is too overpriced.

There are many times when I get tired of holding Kindle and want to rest my hand. I simply plugin headphones and listen to whatever I was reading. Kindle's TTS is amazing and almost sounds like human.

</comment><comment><USER69> Yeah for physical buttons! I miss them on the Paperwhite.

<comment><USER70> I have two Kindle 4s, the last with physical page turn buttons on the edge (until know). I have drooled over the Paperwhite screens but was holding out for one with physical buttons. If the Oasis and its Apple Watch market segment price is anything to go by, I'll be holding on to the 4s for quite some time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> My 5.5 year old Kindle 3 is still going strong. I could definitely see a strong case for a backlit display, but the device I have right now is not worse than a dead tree book in this regard.

My attitude might seem reactionary, however, I feel that in the case of a device that is used for an intimate and intellectual activity, more does not always equal better.

<comment><USER72> No, but better _is_ better. The paper-white display (with backlight) is substantially, appreciably better than the old displays. The absence of the extremely rarely used keyboard is also welcome. The Paperwhite _model_ doesn't have page buttons though which is a regression (fixed on later models which still has the paperwhite _display_ ).

<comment><USER71> Yeah, the keyboard is just a gimmick. I only ever use it to enter wifi passwords. So, in this case _less_ is actually _better_! :P

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Just recently bought a Kindle Voyager (to replace my Kindle 2, which ended up having its screen crack after a fall), and I have to say the physical buttons on this are appealing-- definitely something I miss about the Kindle 2, though the Voyager's pressure-sensitive sides aren't terrible. Not sure it's $90 appealing, though.

</comment><comment><USER74> Wow it's significantly lighter than previous kindles, with more battery, and a nice case.

People are going to say "ah, same old" but there are a lot of big changes here without going and breaking what makes kindles great. Will lots of people upgrade though? Probably not, the existing Kindles are also very good in their own right.

<comment><USER75> Seriously?

It significantly lighter _without the cover_. And is charging every few _weeks_ really so burdensome that you'll pay an additional $170 (compared to the Paperwhite) to avoid it?

That figure really bears repeating: ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY DOLLARS more. They're charging over _twice_ the price of the Paperwhite, for a device with the same screen size, same resolution, same connectivity, etc.

Madness.

<comment><USER76> This might be a niche market, but 4.7 oz (Oasis) down from 7.6 oz (Paperwhite) is nothing to scoff at for through hikers. People will gladly spend MUCH more than $170 to shave ounces on other equipment. The additional battery life also removes the need to carry a charging cable reducing weight further.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> I don't see what makes this worth $100 more than the Kindle Voyage other than it being thin? Am I missing something?

<comment><USER49> Comparing like for like with the voyage, the voyage is missing $60 of leather case that Amazon is including this time around

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Is it me, or is the whole product line looking a bit weak right now? Only one model has proper page turn buttons, and that's the most expensive. The cheapest is nice and cheap but has a low resolution. The paperweight looks like the best option at the moment; I'm not sure what the voyage offers for an extra $80.

<comment><USER79> Not just you. The screen size being locked to 6 inches across the lineup is disappointing. I can understand why someone would want the small screen for portability, but an option for an 8-10 inch screen would be nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Cool product, but I don't see any reason to upgrade from Kindle Paperwhite that would warrant spending additional ~$300 on.

Paperwhite is just _good enough_ across all of the key dimensions - size, weight, screen resolution and battery life for the users who don't run after the latest and greatest.

<comment><USER37> +1. Unlike mobile-ish apps that run on tablets, new books on an e-ink reader aren't in an arms race with CPU performance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER81> I got a paperwhite for the touchscreen and backlight - both made the device a lot better for reading in bed, and that was a long time ago: a 1st gen paperwhite replaced a 2nd gen kindle, and the turn-page button on the 2nd gen was loud enough to bug my wife if she was trying to sleep. The battery on my paperwhite still lasts a week or more of regular reading, so I'm not about to upgrade for battery life (I have an anker for long trips anyway).

I guess maybe the big bezel would have to be a _lot_ more comfortable for me to want to spend on the upgrade. OTOH, I'm a loyal customer who buys kindle books from the amazon store (or gets them from the library), so amazon already has me as a customer anyway, so maybe the device sale is no big deal.

</comment><comment><USER82> My first Kindle was the 2nd gen one, right after they dropped the price to $359 (from its original $399 debut price).

Hard to believe I happily paid $359 for my first one, but $289 looks outrageous for the latest model.

The Oasis looks _awesome_ , but I have a 1st gen Paperwhite and it still runs just fine.

</comment><comment><USER83> Positives: -Physical buttons -Lighter -Smaller -Better frontlighting (supposedly)

Negatives: -Shorter battery life (without the case) -STILL no memory expansion slot -Very, very expensive for a small-formfactor monochromatic e-reader

I've owned every e-ink Kindle model released to date. Going to be skipping this one because there's no real value added over a last gen paperwhite except for physical buttons, which, while very nice, aren't worth tripling the price.

Why do you hate people actually hauling around decent sized libraries, Amazon? Why no SD slot? The device isn't even waterproof yet, there's no excuse.

Their pricepoint is a mistake, unless they just don't want to sell very many of these for some reason. Not much more to say about that.

</comment><comment><USER84> It feels like innovation on e-readers has stalled. Where is our color eink? Flexible screens?

</comment><comment><USER85> I don't know how many years its been, but all this time and the only reason I see to upgrade from my gen4 Kindle is my lack of back light, which has never really been a huge issue as I don't do much night reading.

<comment><USER86> I also have a gen 4 Kindle and a few months ago bought a Paperwhite. The Paperwhite backlight is fantastic, but what really stands out for me is the improved layout engine.

[http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046678/the-kindle-finally- gets-...](http://www.fastcodesign.com/3046678/the-kindle-finally-gets- typography-that-doesnt-suck)

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> Previous (current) discussion from 1 hour ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11488082](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11488082)

</comment><comment><USER88> I wish Amazon would start investing more effort into the software of the Kindle, and make it more into a platform. I still use mine mainly to read eBooks. I would love to use it for reading my Pocket list, for instance. I've been waiting for such an integration for a while.

Amazon's doing a much better job with third party integration in the smart home domain. I still hope the eBook division will follow suit..

<comment><USER89> Checkout [https://p2k.co/](https://p2k.co/), I think it does a good job solving the specific Pocket problem. I agree with your general sentiment though

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> Disappointing. I can see some very small demographics being interested in this, but I don't see the average consumer benefiting purchasing it.

</comment><comment><USER91> Apropos nothing, I just checked my email records and I have 294 purchase receipts from Amazon Kindle books going back to 2010. I've read the vast vast majority of these on various iPhones and I have no complaints. It works great for me for 6+ hour sessions of reading.

I'm still looking for the right PDF reader, currently using GoodReader which for me is merely acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER92> Looks pretty good maybe even worthy of an upgrade but that price is just too rich for me for an ebook reader. Maybe in a year or so when they've come down significantly. The charging cover almost seems unnecessary but if it really extends the battery life into months then that's pretty awesome. Certainly would be great for long term camping / hiking.

</comment><comment> tma-1 E-Reader for the price of a new PS4, no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER93> Ok, I have a Kindle Paperwhite 7th generation. It's 300dpi. There's no reason even to desire this, right?

<comment><USER94> You shouldn't let other people tell you what to desire ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER95> All of the images show it being held with the right hand. Can it not be turned upside down and held with the left?

</comment><comment><USER96> This is a terrible price point for what's at best a weak upgrade to the Voyage. $290? That's nuts, unless you're going to give me a 10" screen with it. I was waiting on buying a new Kindle, hoping the Oasis would have a larger screen. Now I'll just buy the Voyage instead.

</comment><comment><USER97> A new Kindle, and still the size of a postage stamp. Do people really like to read on such a tiny screen? I ended up buying a Kobo H2O when I compared it next to a Kindle Voyage - bonus is I can use it in the bath without worrying about getting it wet!

</comment><comment><USER98> Late last year I upgraded from a kindle 3 (keyboard) to the Voyage. I like the Voyage quite a bit and the cover flipping over the top rather than to the side is more usable than the case for the paperwhite.

As others have said, additional battery life isn't an issue for me.

</comment><comment><USER99> Nice. We have a Kindle for book reading but I have been considering letter/a4 size epaper reader for music score notes for my children, the amount of paper they carry around is incredible. Too bad Amazon doesn't offer anything like this yet.

</comment><comment><USER100> I suspect that Amazon has realized that people don't upgrade their kindles the way they do their phone per say and they think that people will be willing to pay a lot more for something that lasts them 4 or 5 years, if it feels higher quality.

</comment><comment><USER101> This is a terrible price, especially at the CAD ($400!) pricing.

I would love page turning buttons on my paperwhite like my older kindles had. But I'm not paying $400 for the privilege of getting back what Amazon took away.

The touchscreen on the paperwhite is a terrible idea.

</comment><comment><USER102> Wow, $289?!?

I loved the previous generation priced under $100 but that's a huge jump and I'm not convinced the feature list justifies such a price. I predict this is not going to sell very well.

And I would have loved a slightly larger screen (7 inches).

<comment><USER103> $289 _with offers_.

Who is going to buy this? Who is it for?

<comment><USER104> And don't forget $20 for a power adapter :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER105> The only thing that have held me back from upgrading to a Paperwhite is that the background LED is always on.

I hope this allows you to turn it off, but like the information about the Paperwhite, it is probably going to be buried in the forums.

<comment><USER106> You're not the first person I've heard to complain about this, but is it really an issue? When it's on the lowest setting you're hard pressed to see the glow in even the darkest of rooms, and the battery life is still amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> My first thought when I say the buttons only on the right side were 'what if you're left handed!', but it seems they've thought of that:

"Comfortably turn the page with either the touch display or dedicated page turn buttons located on the front of the handgrip. Whether you choose to read with your left or right hand, Kindle Oasis automatically rotates the page orientation to match."

Having said that, when using my Kindle I often switch from one hand to the other to accommodate things like picking up a cup, or one arm getting tired.

This is also a lot more expensive that the Paperwhite, or even the Voyage. While the dual battery concept seems nice, I can't say battery life with my existing Kindle has ever been an issue... don't think I'll be upgrading.

</comment><comment><USER107> For someone who never had e-reader: how good are they to read PDFs with code? Most of my "books" are just PDFs and I've read e-readers were bad for them some time ago. Is it better now?

<comment><USER108> Still bad IMO. I do not recommend using an e-reader for PDFs. I use a Kindle DX on a rare occasion.

A tablet computer with pen provides the best experience IMO. I've used a iPad and an Android tablet before. Both have excellent PDF reading software. I recommend Bookari on Android. The Microsoft Surface, however, beats everything else I've tried.

</comment></comment><comment><USER109> The design does look way better, but 300 is a stretch for me for a kindle.

</comment><comment><USER110> I'm sorry but the device didn't need fixing. The shitty user experience of getting content on it and managing it needed fixing.

Until that is taken care of this is still not the device it could be.

<comment><USER111> Calibre solves that for me. Also I barely buy books on Amazon thanks to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> I love the Kindle and ebook readers in general, but my beloved Kindle doesn't like PDFs.

Is there any Kindle that does a proper job displaying PDFs without one having to play all the time with zoom?

<comment><USER113> No, but if you are serious about a PDF workflow for reference and annotation, the Sony DPTS1 is an excellent single-purpose device.

[http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product- DPTS1/](http://pro.sony.com/bbsc/ssr/product-DPTS1/)

<comment><USER112> Interesting I wasn't aware of it. A bit pricey though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> Looks really nice, but $500 CAD for the 3G version seems very steep.

</comment><comment><USER115> Was looking forward to buying this, but have no interest in buying leather for ethical reasons. I emailed email@example.com about this and am curious what kind of response I get.

<comment><USER116> Indeed, it's stupid that such high-tech device ships with dead animal skin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER117> Why have the buttons on just one side? That means I can effectively only read with one hand. I basically just want a paperwhite with page turn buttons on both sides.

</comment><comment><USER118> I wonder if it's actually now better to read things on the new ipad 9.7". Notably with true tone, night shift and the wide color gamut of the new display.

<comment><USER119> Personally, I find eink screens easier to read, even over retina displays. There's simply less strain on my eyes with the eink.

</comment></comment><comment><USER120> Is Amazon still refusing to support ePub on their devices? It looks like that from the spec and conversions didn't look correct last time I tried.

</comment><comment><USER121> Can anybody tell where the power button is? The Paperwhite has it at the bottom, which isn't ideal for setting it on the elliptical machine.

</comment><comment><USER122> It doesn't have the adaptive light sensor from the Voyage? It always feels like one step forward, one step back with this product line.

</comment><comment><USER123> Looks like it's meant to be held with your right hand. I wonder if you can make it flip the screen so left handed people can use it too.

<comment><USER124> Paragraph 4: "Whether you choose to read with your left or right hand, Kindle Oasis automatically rotates the page orientation to match."

</comment></comment><comment><USER125> The copy here makes a big deal about reading outdoors. Can anyone comment on the current offerings and how reflective they are in sunlight?

<comment><USER68> I have Kindle Keyboard and Paperwhite. Both of them are great for reading outdoors. Only time it is problem is when sun is directly reflecting in your eyes, but slight adjustment of wrist, problem is solved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER126> so thin that the screen breaks at the slightest pressure, I owned 2 kindles, they ended up with the screen broke in two after every travel.

<comment> jon-wood What were you doing to them? I treat my Kindle terribly and the only damage its ever had is a small part of the screen which no longer works because my keys pushed into it.

<comment><USER127> What Kindle do you have? My Kindle 3 (complete with physical keyboard!) still keeps rocking, but my Voyage broke after less than half a year.

I moved to a Kobo Glo HD after that. DRM free, account free, same screen, more robust.

<comment> jon-wood I've got a Paperwhite, so maybe that's what did it. I don't really see the point in the higher end models myself, I wouldn't even have bought the Paperwhite if it weren't for the screen backlight.

<comment><USER127> I bought the Voyage for its better screen… a week or so before Amazon announced an updated Paperwhite with the same screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER128> As a leftie, I feel like it is going to be uncomfortable to use, given that most of the weight of the device sits on the right hand side.

<comment><USER129> From the photos, it seems you can flip it around and it works for lefties.

</comment></comment><comment><USER130> $289.99 for an ugly looking kindle that isn't that different from the paperwhite... no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER131> Isn't it easier/cheaper to add small solar panel than second battery?

</comment><comment><USER132> I wonder how much battery might be saved with an "invert colors" mode for nighttime reading. I love that feature for my various iPad reading apps and desperately wish my Paperwhite had that capability. It would be so much easier on the eyes as well.

<comment><USER133> Probably not much. e-ink only sucks battery when it's changing pixels, and the same ones change whether or not it's inverted.

<comment><USER132> Bummer--makes sense though. Thanks for the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER134> I don't like that the page turners are only on the right side.

<comment><USER135> Simply rotate the device, and the content will also rotate.

<comment><USER136> Then they'll only be on the left side!

<comment><USER137> You can turn it round so the buttons are on the opposite edge.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER138> So, if you're left handed it's upside down by default?

</comment><comment><USER8> Kindle keyboard (and text-to-speech) for life! :)

<comment><USER45> The test-to-speech on the old kindles was surprisingly good. I used to walk to work, and listen to my kindle on the way. Also worked pretty good with one of those audio-to-tape adapter rigs in my old car - way better than trying to find non-abridged audiobooks on tape and then deal with switching through a box of a dozen tapes on long drives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER139> I've mostly gone back to physical books. The Kindle was a nice experiment and all, but honestly it's more expensive and less convenient

<comment><USER140> Well, a little more nuanced than that. I'd argue the convenience of getting books at the touch of a button outweighs some of its inconveniences (battery, etc.).

<comment><USER139> I don't particularly experience the inconveniences since I like going into bookshops and usually have a backlog to read. I still have the kindle app and a few kindle books for the occasions when they are useful. The real killer for me though is that at least a third of the books I read are lent to me by a friend, and most of the books I buy are shared on. Kindle doesn't really support this, and that makes the economics of ebooks rather poor for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER141> I'm glad the buttons are back!

</comment><comment><USER142> It is about time that an e-Reader works one handed. I have no idea why this wasn't done years ago.

<comment><USER143> The original Kindles had page turn buttons on each side. The Kindle Voyage has capacitive page turn buttons on each side. I don't really see what's so special about this other than that it has a bigger bezel on the side with the buttons.

<comment><USER144> I love my 2nd gen Kindle for having those page turn buttons on both sides.

Not just for left or right hande people. Sometimes you want to rest and can't stop reading.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER145> Yes finally an ereader designed for Africa the land of wild animals and no electricity !

</comment><comment><USER146> 10 whole leds!

</comment><comment><USER147> 4GB in 2016. Amazon, it's not funny, really! Or actually it is very funny... Good luck!

<comment><USER86> How much on-board storage do you think would be enough? I'm guessing Amazon has a pretty good idea of how much storage their best customers need.

<comment><USER147> I have to read plenty of PDFs (imagine recent research articles) and have many books in PDF format I bought (a single photography/visual art book PDF can be easily 100MB) - if Amazon had incorporated a silly microSD card slot, I could stuff everything I got into it. Now my Voyage is relegated to "hot items" only, the ones I need to read right now, and often I don't bother. Now what is the cost of a microSD slot? $0.20? They insist on some silly business model and they just ruin it for the resourceful clients that don't want to waste time switching between multiple devices, could buy a lot from them and inspire other people to "ape" after them as well. Now I rather stuff a 200GB microSD card into my Android phone (iPhone has the same issue), put everything there instead and buy ebooks elsewhere. Win for Amazon?

<comment><USER143> How can you even read PDFs on it? Whenever I try it tries to cram it from a 8.5x11 down to he 6in screen and everything turns out blurry. Images also don't seem to be fantastic on the devices, so I don't know how many high-image documents you could even _use_ on that device.

<comment><USER147> Voyage has 300ppi as well, so it's readable from close distances (kinda like low-quality laser print); research articles often have two columns per A4 so I just zoom in 200% and am more-less fine. I would rather have 8"\+ 4:3 of course. And sometimes PDF rendering is extremely slow as well, but...

On the other hand if I need a certain photography setup for achieving a certain look, I can use Voyage for that - imagine instead of a PDF book with lighting setups and examples of results you had a piece of paper with a drawing - seems pretty comparable quality-wise.

<comment><USER148> For research articles I do this:

1\. crop out page numbers: [http://briss.sourceforge.net/](http://briss.sourceforge.net/)

2\. remove columns and reflow with: [http://willus.com/k2pdfopt/](http://willus.com/k2pdfopt/)

The later one works like magic, it totally made my ebook reader so much useful. (A Tolino Vision, a very fine german device not locked to the Amazon store: [http://mytolino.com/](http://mytolino.com/))

(edit: fixed links)

<comment><USER86> What do you mean by _not locked to the Amazon store_? Does the Tolino work with books bought from Amazon? How about Google, B&N, or Apple?

<comment><USER148> It means you can copy Epub files to it without conversion (with or without drm). It has direct integration with various ebook shops (mostly German) as opposed to be tied to the reader manufacturer's bookshop. It's not the panacea but it seems better than the situation with most other readers. I also enjoy the tap-to-flip feature (tap with your finger on the back to flip page), specially when lying on the bed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER149> "Buy once, read everywhere"

I can't get this to work for my Kindle. I export lengthy articles and journal papers to mobi and save it on kindle device, but I can't find it on my mobile or my laptop ever.

<comment><USER5> The key word is "buy." If it's associated with your digital purchases on Amazon, you can directly access them from any device. If you've downloaded/saved a document to a specific device, it's only on that device.

However, my understanding is that you can import content to your personal Kindle library. [https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_left_v4_sib?ie=UTF8&nodeId=201974270)

</comment></comment><comment><USER150> I owned a Kindle 1, 2, Keyboard, and then a Paperwhite.

The first-gen PW was EXTREMELY disappointing - their much-hyped backlighting was uneven and splotchy, and I hated being forced to use a touchscreen instead of having page-turn buttons.

So, when the Nexus 7 FHD came out, I switched to using that (despite having to use a touchscreen) and the PW has gathered dust. If I ever dig it back out, I'll have to do a manual firmware update for the SSL cert issue, but I need to do that for the K1 I have in storage as well.

It was surprising when I dug the K1 out of a box last year and the built-in 3G still worked fine.

</comment><comment><USER151> I really wish the Kindle team had more imagination. It's a tablet designed for reading enthusiasts-- what about making one for writing enthusiasts?

Imagine a very affordable, portable laptop with week-long battery life, completely free of distractions like youtube.

It writes. It reads. It sends emails. That's it. Maybe as a stretch, they could quietly make it attractive to the tech community with a Unix-compatible shell and SSH ability. Call it the Kindle TypeLighter.

You're welcome, Amazon. I'll accept my royalty payments in personal check.

EDIT: Before anyone says anything about refresh rates, there's plenty of electronic ink technologies that are more than capable of supporting the rates needed to rapidly add characters to the screen. This thing, for example: [http://www.dasung.com.cn/](http://www.dasung.com.cn/)

<comment><USER152> You can buy this Sony thing right now: [http://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper- notepads/dpts1](http://www.sony.com/electronics/digital-paper-notepads/dpts1) \-- thin A4 display.

<comment><USER5> It looks interesting if it works as advertised. (The reviews seem a bit mixed.) But at $799 you'd need to have a pretty compelling use case (like reading an annotating a lot of PDF journal articles) to justify it vs. just annotating articles on a tablet.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is it just me or do a lot of people not know how stock options work? - <AUTHOR> I work in a startup in San Francisco. We're profitable & growing, about 30 people now. I'm one of the first engineers so I have a good chunk of stock options.
A lot of times when I talk to my friends (mostly engineers, mostly in their middle 20s) about stock options they don't even know the basics.
A few examples from my life:
* A coworker left the company right before the end of his first year. He had ISOs, and it wouldn't be that expensive to buy them, but he still decided to leave right before the 1 year cliff date to go work in another company.
* A friend of mine did not sign his stock options paperwork when his employer gave it to him more than 1 year ago. I guess he was just lazy, didn't want to sign something he did not fully understand. I don't know all the details but I assume if he signs it now he loses 1 year of vesting, the grant price will be higher — just not the greatest decision / attitude imo.
* Another friend left the company where she had stock options, 6 months later she found out that the company was sold. She remembered about the stock options and asked me for advice. She did not know much about the topic so I told her roughly what her options were, told her about the 90-day rule. I later found out that she ended up getting some money from her past employer.
I know that there's a conversation [1][2] about changing some of the technicalities around stock options, but I think there might be an even bigger problem — many employees don't understand the basics of stock options, hence they don't value equity as much as employers / investors do.
Or is it just me and my friends?
1. http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity
2. http://blog.triplebyte.com/fixing-the-inequity-of-startup-equity <comment><USER2> _many employees don 't understand the basics of stock options, hence they don't value equity as much as employers / investors do_

The fact that I know the basics of stock options is precisely the reason I don't value equity as much as employers or investors do. I can count on two fingers the number of companies whose stock options put money in my pocket, and one of them is Microsoft. I would need many hands to count the number of ways a company can screw me out of a payday on options.

Point is, for the vast majority of people knowing or not knowing the first thing about stock options won't make a lick of difference in their bottom line. What people need to know about options: sign the paperwork when it's given to you, and on the outside chance the options end up being worth anything your coworkers will give you some half-assed advice, which is one's trigger to go talk to a financial advisor.

Otherwise, spend your mental energy on how to increase your 401K contribution. _That 's_ guaranteed to involve real money that you can benefit from, and you should bone up on maximizing the potential.

<comment><USER3> big companies like Microsoft/Google/etc don't even offer most of their employees stock options, but instead they offer RSU (Restricted Stocks Units). Those are easier to understand, there's no exercising decision to be made, you just need to know your vesting dates. The biggest decision is : Do you want to sell your stocks before or after the 1 year Long term capital gain wait, but that decision is common to all stocks.

<comment><USER4> > The biggest decision is : Do you want to sell your stocks before or after > the 1 year Long term capital gain wait, but that decision is common to all > stocks.

The decision is more along the lines of sell now vs. sell later. The LTCG decision is not nearly as important. The conventional wisdom is just to treat the RSU as the same as salary by selling immediately upon vesting. Since you're already employed and paid by them, holding equity in the company you work for is unnecessary additional risk.

<comment><USER5> If you're working in the Bay Area and making average wage for a software developer, your marginal tax rate is going to be 28%+. If waiting 12 months means you can lower your tax burden to the long term capital gains rate of 15%, that's a no brainer.

<comment><USER6> AIUI, RSUs are treated as normal W-2 income when they vest.

<comment><USER4> Right. Your cost basis is the price at vesting, so it's the same as if you bought the stock at market with cash for the same price.

<comment><USER7> so is the capital gains tax only on the profit from the stock? wouldnt it be better just to sell instantly and not have so much of your money tied up into one asset anyway? Sorry if these are basic questions

<comment><USER6> Yep and yep. Not basic at all, this stuff is only simple once you already know how it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Keep in mind when you say "stock options," it can mean different things. The first thing that comes to my mind when you say "stock options" is options trading on publicly traded companies. That is buying and/or selling contracts of puts and/or calls.

The second is "stock options" at private companies as compensation, which is what you are referring to. There are many variations on how this works.

I've seen companies, as a bonus, grant what amounts to a call option that can't traded and only exercised at some point in the future. This may be free or you might have to pay for it.

I was once given stock as a bonus at a startup, making me an owner. Being an owner didn't pay me any sort of dividend, but it massively complicated my income taxes by giving me a K-1 in May (after April 15th). Additionally, I owed tax on my percentage of ownership, which was really a pain. The other gotcha but I wasn't allowed to be an owner unless I worked there. So when I quit, I got cashed out at "fair market value," which was a B.S. number they made up and gave me a couple thousand dollars. I also got diluted by half while I was an "owner." The experience made me very leery of ownership. Now I just look for salary.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're right, I thought it would be clear from the context that I'm talking about employee stock options.

It seems like your experience with stock kind of proves my point and reveals the employee side of this problem — because you didn't fully understand how all these things work, and no one explained it to you — you had much different expectations.

And now, instead of incentivizing you to stay, you employer leaves you frustrated and basically incentivizes you to leave.

<comment><USER8> Yeah, I agree, that is a good way to put it. The K-1s were such a mess... I think I got 15-20 pages worth of complex tax documents. It was especially messy since we had a part ownership of another company in a different state. I don't consider myself a financial dunce either (I can handle W-2s and 1099s fine). Employee stock purchase & RSU awards at big companies are honestly so much more straightforward (and fair).

The way I got diluted also made me really take the advice to heart I always hear on HN - when there is a buyout, the executives will be the ones at the table arguing for themselves to get paid. But nobody is going to be there for you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> No, this is not just a problem you're having.

I was an early engineer at Zenefits and found myself holding stock options seminars to explain this stuff to the rest of the engineers.

I built optionvalue.io as a calculator to help people answer some basic questions about what their stock is worth, and I'm building it out more to answer questions (eg, tax implications and exercise windows).

I've talked to grellas and some other folks with a long, long history dealing with this stuff. There seems to be some consensus that:

(1) People now are more educated about stock options than they've ever been.

(2) That's a pretty low bar.

<comment><USER10> "I was an early engineer at Zenefits and found myself holding stock options seminars to explain this stuff to the rest of the engineers."

This is a tricky position to be in, considering that in this sort of situation, you're generally explaining to people a small subset of the ways that they can get screwed. As much as it might seem nice to see people spending lots of time trying to figure out what their stock options are worth, it's not worth the time or effort. By the time you have it figured out, it's changed. And the future is so unknown. If everything goes great and the company hits all of its targets, stock options will be worth something. If there's a bump in the road, you're toast.

<comment><USER9> The simplest heuristic to use is to assume the company exits at its latest valuation and do the calculations of what your options would be worth in that case.

Then, understand when your company could (at soonest) go public, given that growth rates will slow down at a rate around what comparable companies exhibit.

Obviously it's still a crapshoot, but this will give you a value for E(x) and timeframe.

<comment><USER10> > assume the company exits at its latest valuation and do the calculations of > what your options would be worth in that case.

Sure, but even in this case, you have no idea what the provisions of that round are, most likely. The investors may have asked for better returns (money-back + participation), there may be lines of credit that have to be paid back first, there may be loans that are paid off the top. My point is that most non-executive employees can't get enough information to make an accurate assumption. It's possible, maybe even likely, that if you exit at your latest valuation, your stock is worth $0 of actual money when on-paper, it was worth something significant.

<comment><USER9> If cash-out is around latest valuation, weird terms will only change the $ amount by <10% or so.

If cash-out is less than the latest valuation, then it starts mattering. At ~40-50% of latest valuation, common shares can end up effectively worthless, for example Good Technologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When it comes to stock options, HN has taught me two things:

1\. They are worthless, as >90% startups fail and you won't be getting anything in that case.

2\. If they are not worthless, you might not be able to afford paying for them anyway [1].

Add to that how difficult it is to get a simple, clear answer to the question "how do I invest my money?". So yes, I wouldn't be surprised if most people didn't know how stock options work.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811570](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811570)

<comment><USER12> Even though anecdotally, I have made some money on option grants, I now see them as a symptom of cargo-cult management practices.

A few weeks ago, a co-worker asked me for advice about a new (to us) employee stock purchase plan, and I basically said, "don't shit where you eat."

Messing around with your employer's stock isn't a wonderful idea. Most people should just be blindly investing x% of their income in a robot-managed index fund. Fewer people should also be investing in only those businesses they understand well enough to independently analyze. And if I were in any position to really analyze the financials of my employer, well, now I'm subject to insider trading gotchas.

But as a peon-level employee of a company, I am always in the very first group of people to be lied to whenever anything goes wrong. Everything is fine. Continue working as usual. Don't worry about office shutdowns and massive layoffs. I'd always tend to overvalue my employer's stock (or frantically shotgun resumes to other potential employers).

For the purposes of incentivizing better productivity, the company _could_ be adding cash bonuses to my paycheck. It's very simple, and great for my morale (barring memberships in the Jelly-of-the-Month Club, Sparky). My current company has done it a few times. When you hide the "extra free money" behind a stock-shuffling scheme, it makes me think you're up to something sneaky.

Also, I don't consider it wise to be heavily invested in the company that is my primary source of ordinary income.

Think of it this way: would/could you buy the option/stock on the open market if the company wasn't offering it up in the conference room? I wouldn't. Only if I were already 100% financially secure otherwise would I ever invest in my employer directly. And guess what? 100% financially secure means that I can quit, right now, and not have an employer, freeing me to invest in whatever damned-fool thing I want.

If you're taking financial advice from random people on the Internet, the only place you should be investing is robot-managed index funds, and not doing anything on the side until after you have already maxed out your 401(k) contributions.

So I basically value options as "this company would rather generate massive amounts of additional paperwork and hassle than just give me an equivalent value in cash bonuses."

<comment><USER13> To play devil's advocate though, you _are_ being provided more information than the external market would be by virtue of being an employee of a company, and also someone working in the industry, etc.

Having more information at your disposal to evaluate a company means that option grant is worth more to you than to a random person on the street, which is why the company will pay you in options. It's better for the company, since they would rather sell equity to you than to a random person, and it's better for you, because you are an informed investor and know more than just from reading balance sheets.

That said, IMO you should basically only work at a startup that you think will be successful. Given that, you should buy as much equity as you can afford to. From a financial perspective, working at a startup then not taking equity is just throwing away a big chunk of informational efficiency. If you just want a cash paycheck, go work at a big company instead.

<comment><USER12> The only rational reason to work as an _employee_ of a startup is for better job titles, working conditions, and professional development (from tougher challenges). Getting paid in lottery tickets is _not_ sound investment strategy.

You may be a better informed investor if you pick the locks on the filing cabinets in the C-level offices after the bosses go home, and bug all the conference rooms, but it is unlikely that will make you better at estimating the future market value of the company, or at evaluating potential buyout scenarios. In any case, I never thought that spying on my bosses was a good idea. I just heard the lies, saw through the BS, and started sending out resumes. Or I got blindsided and started sending out resumes.

You should only work at a startup that will support the lifestyle you desire. If you were really critical to the company, you would have a contract and genuine equity, rather than being "at will" with a promise of options vesting later. Your primary concern should be "can the company continue to pay me for my work this month?", and your secondary concern "can they pay me next month?", and so on. _As an employee_ , you are a replaceable worker-for-hire.

If you want to win big at the startup game, be a co-founder with undilutable equity. If you want to invest prudently as an employee, you can play the entire market rather than just one small, potentially volatile company, and a bigger cash paycheck makes that easier to do.

Employee option grants just seem like a con to make peon-level employees feel like they have more agency and more emotional connection with their employer than they actually do. The anecdotal success stories of option grants that actually pay off are necessary to keep the game going, just as state lotteries have to blow some money on oversized checks, balloons, and confetti whenever someone wins the jackpot.

The company's money does not come from a vacuum. No matter what amount of profit you get from an option grant, the company could have given it to you in a different, less complicated way. If you exercise 1000 options, and have to sell 500 of the shares to cover the exercise price, the company could have just granted you 500 shares directly, and still had 500 left to give out later. The hand-wavey sort-of-options are 100% there to benefit _the company, and its owners, and their tax preparer_ , not you.

<comment><USER13> > Getting paid in lottery tickets is _not_ sound investment strategy.

Anecdotally, I know someone personally who was an early employee at multiple startups at all IPO'd. Some of those IPOs happened years after he had already left.

He's now a millionaire many times over because he had the acumen to pick winners, and that's specifically what he was looking for when he made his choice on where to work. This is obviously not general investment advice, because you have to have an eye for picking winners. But he certainly recognized that 1) he had an opportunity to get equity for cheap and 2) he knew more than the general market and took full advantage of that fact. He even diversified by working somewhere until his options vested, then moving on, while not waiting for exit.

My point still holds: if you don't tolerate risk and want to get paid in cash, _don 't work at a startup_.

Your moralizing and demonizing of startup compensation seems misplaced here -- the #1 biggest reason they pay in equity and options is because they are short on cash and long on equity. Founders spend a lot of time trying to raise cash from investors, so turning employees into de facto investors is a cheap and convenient solution.

<comment><USER12> > _...turning employees into de facto investors is a cheap and convenient > solution._

And also unethical, in my opinion. If startups treated their investors like investors, and their employees like employees, they would be able to hire people without needing to look at _risk tolerance_ as a hiring qualification. Perhaps coincidentally, young, single people have a much higher risk tolerance than older people with families. If avoiding the appearance of age discrimination is at all important

They would even fare better if they refrained from treating employee-investors as a lower class of investor, that can be diluted to oblivion while the higher classes of investor still get paid.

Your anecdotal acquaintance sounds like an investor first, who just happened to be able to get hired as an employee. If you job hop while collecting discount equity opportunities, and leave before the success of the company is ultimately determined, how much of that value comes from the work you do, rather than your evaluation of the company and your co-workers? I presume that if the initial evaluation was off, he'd scarper for greener pastures in the middle of the night without waiting for anything to vest?

You can't do that in most of the US. Away from the west coast and the Boston- to-DC corridor, there may only be one or two startups in town that need tech employees, if any. If you're in a college town, there may be few dozen, built around somebody's thesis work. If you don't like the local job scene, you have to move your entire household somewhere else. The startups follow the expectations of the investors, and the investors are looking at the coastal unicorns. I just get sick of all the cargo-culting of SV startup culture, y'know? It only works there because it's _there_ , and I'm not even sure that "works" is the right word to use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some employers don't help either. My wife just received an offer from a pretty well funded company (Series B >$20M) and all they would tell her about the options package was number of shares and vesting schedule. When she asked to how many shares are in the company (to calculate her potential ownership %) she wasn't given an answer. When she asked for a rough estimate of the current value of those shares if vested, they basically just said "trust us, this is a good package." That experience reinforced my belief that you should assume the equity is worth $0 and not factor in the stock grant when evaluating an offer (unless you are at the company super early).

</comment><comment><USER15> There are 2 things which people are very financially illiterate about these days. Stock Options, and how income taxes work. You've covered the former, with the later I've seen confusion with how progressive tax brackets work, how deductions work, etc. All you can do is to make sure you understand it, and be careful of the advice you get from others.

<comment><USER16> I was taken aback when I realized just how few people understand the United States progressive tax system and how income tax brackets work. That misunderstanding is so pervasive (in my experience) that I can't even imagine people having a general understanding of how deductions work at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There seems to be a general rule of thumb among investors and founders I've talked to that the vast majority of options won't vest or will go unpurchased, and as a result it seems many have tried to keep things as opaque as they can. As a CEO and Founder I find this incredibly troubling and I believe it's contributing to why so few folks value sweat equity anymore. I've written a few thoughts on this before for anyone interested: [https://medium.com/busyness-time/part-i-how-were-building- st...](https://medium.com/busyness-time/part-i-how-were-building- stae-6c4beab9f771#.vk21sy795)

</comment><comment><USER18> To add to all of this, most people really don't understand the tax implications of options (whether they're ISOs, NSOs, or not options at all but instead are RSUs).

It's hard to explain those without looking at a person's individual situation (the company, the initial value, the current valuation, and the person's tax bracket), which is why there's not a lot of talk about them. But the taxation can very easily be the tipping point between "definitely worth it to exercise" and "definitely _not_ worth it to exercise", so it's really important to understand them.

<comment><USER19> True. But it's also important to not view taxes as _the thing_ in deciding what to do.

I had options that I could exercise (at a big, publicly-traded company, so I didn't have the startup, no-liquidity issues to worry about). My options were worth quite a bit of money. I had already exercised enough to put me at the edge of the next incremental tax bracket. On about December 15, I was looking at it, and thought it was a _really_ tempting price, but... taxes. I decided to wait for January.

Three days later, our company made an offer on another company. The stock market didn't like it. Our stock went down. I lost more than the taxes would have been.

Moral: When money is growing on trees, _pick it_.

Disclaimer: That isn't always good advice. If the price had continued to go up, it would have been really bad advice. But too much focus on taxes is also bad advice.

<comment><USER18> > Moral: When money is growing on trees, pick it.

The problem is that taxes can quite literally cause you to lose money.

For example, exercising options (at a gain) is a taxable event _whether or not_ the options are actually liquid. In fact, if you're an early employee and your startup has been very successful, you could literally be looking at a tax liability of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, even if your strike price is only a couple thousand dollars. (That would be the case if you were a very early employee and the company was very successful - ie, the exact situation we think of as the "upside").

If you leave the company (voluntarily or not), you have 90 days to decide whether or not to exercise those options and pay the taxes immediately, even though you won't get to actually sell the underlying shares until a liquidity event happens. There's no guarantee that the liquidity event will give you the same (or higher) price, and even if those options tank, you don't get your taxes back.

So, if those options subsequently tank to "only" double what they were worth when you joined the company as employee #1, you might think "hey, that's great - I made a 200% return on my equity". Except, you didn't - because the taxable amount was 100 times that - so you're deeply in the red.

(These numbers are all made up, but the orders of magnitude I'm talking about are quite realistic under the parameters I described.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> We give basic details in our offer letters, are open about all the details, have an employee focused scheme (i.e. 10-year exercise window), and when we do the grant paperwork for new employees (we do it in batches because of all the government stuff involved, we're in the UK), we give those employees a talk on how it all works, set expectations, etc.

I think we're fairly good at this, and most people I've spoken to in the company know enough about it to not hit any of the issues above - i.e. their vesting schedule, strike price, exercise window, etc.

</comment><comment><USER21> Pardon my ignorance, but I did a search on this thread for the word "lawyer" and there was no match.

My stupid question: Doesn't San Francisco have good lawyers who are specialized in this stuff? I mean, a lawyer who's getting paid by you, not by the company.

I'm not advocating complete ignorance of the matter, but there are people who know the ins and outs of this and are aware of most of the missteps through which they can guide you.

My point is that having a lawyer also serves as a deterrent and sends a signal you're not to be hustled. It also tells you about the people you're dealing with: the company not liking it should set off your spidey sense.

I mean, the first thing someone who's hustling would do is to be offended you're taking precautions because it hurt his feelings that you don't "trust him". It's not that you don't trust him.

These things are just like prenups. People's feeling about them stems from the assumption that at the time they're activated, they'd be feeling the same for each other as they are now, which is not true. By the time a prenup is activated, people usually hate each other, and a prenup serves to protect you from the future version of them, and them from the future version of you. The versions that hate each other. There's a reason billionaires have the cheapest divorces, and artists/athletes have the most expensive ones.

</comment><comment><USER22> Add me to your example list, I knew nothing till recently (now I know a non- zero amount, still close to zero). I was talking to Docker earlier this year, and really appreciated the recruiter spending about 30 minutes (and told me several times to do additional research) just explaining how options work.

On another note, this recruiter at Docker was hands down the best recruiter I've worked with. 45 minute initial phone conversation to explain the product and roadmap before even scheduling the first phone screen.

</comment><comment><USER23> let me augment this with a real world example of why knowing about stock options is important for those cases where you need to understand why _not_ to exercise.

recently I left a company after 3 years, with a decent chunk of options in my comp. the company is not publicly traded, is still deep in the red, is still trying to raise more rounds of venture capital (thus increasing dilution), and has no exit in sight for the foreseeable future.

My cost to exercise my options at their strike price would have been just over $8000 bucks, and then there would be additional taxes on top of that for whatever the face value of the purchased shares would be. These are illiquid assets, mind you, so the face value would be taxed, but there were no buyers, so it's just an outright loss.

I left those options unexercised. I certainly didn't feel like donating $8000 bucks to my former boss' checking account and then paying extra taxes on it all for the privilege of sitting on illiquid assets for an indeterminate number of years (with a high probability of the stock never being worth anything at all).

Understanding the structure and fees and taxes of the options is very important specifically so you don't go and throw good money after bad in situations like this.

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://github.com/jlevy/og-equity-compensation](https://github.com/jlevy/og- equity-compensation)

<comment><USER25> I know it may seem like a long read, but I highly recommend taking the time to look the document over if you have/will have stock options from your company. The part about early exercising covers a calculated risk that can potentially save you thousands if not hundreds of thousands in taxes if your company does well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> In answer to your question, the answer is "Yes, many if not a majority, of tech employees are clueless about stock options." I've thought about the reasons for that, and mostly they are around actual use.

Every startup, and nearly every company, that I've worked at had "the talk" about stock options, they went over ISO, NSO, and RSO. They talk about taxes and gains and tax law. They talk about vesting and cliffs and blackouts and strike prices. They dump a ton of data on your head.

And the problem is they are dumping it onto people who have absolutely no way to connect what they are saying to their own personal existence, and so they forget all of it. It is human nature, a brain defense, what have you that when you are given information that you only barely understand and has no immediate relevance to your situation, you promptly flush it out of your brain.

That all changes once the options are actually worth money and can be exercised and sold.

Once options have value they become _relevant_ and generally a co-worker or someone more clued in will do something like buy a new car "using their options" or even just a new bike or TV. And that will trigger the questions, "Hey I think I have options maybe I should figure out if they are worth money." Sometimes this happens when you are being laid off or fired and you are given 90 days to exercise your options or lose them.

At that time, the information you develop about options will stick in your head because you needed it to accomplish some task, which ideally rewarded you with some extra cash that you didn't know you had access to. Later in the year this action will trigger you learning a lot more about the tax code than you wanted to know :-).

</comment><comment><USER27> Can anybody share some info on how taking stock options in a US company differs from a UK one? A lot of the reading applies to US market. I'm wondering if any of the advice is not transferrable.

Also, I believe that this is a good read - [https://blog.alexmaccaw.com/an- engineers-guide-to-stock-opti...](https://blog.alexmaccaw.com/an-engineers- guide-to-stock-options)

<comment><USER28> In the past I worked for a UK company from the UK which was owned by a US parent, where employees in the UK were granted options in the US company under the HMRC Enterprise Management Incentives (EMI) scheme: [https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes/enterprise- man...](https://www.gov.uk/tax-employee-share-schemes/enterprise-management- incentives-emis) . I think without the scheme if I had exercised an option (whether to hold onto the share or to sell immediately) then I would have owed income tax on the difference between the strike price and the current value i.e. the discount my employer effectively gave me. I think I would have owed the tax even if I was forbidden to sell the stock (e.g. if the company had stayed private). With EMI there was no income tax on exercise and I only owed capital gains tax when I eventually sold the stock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> _I think there might be an even bigger problem — many employees don 't understand the basics of stock options, hence they don't value equity as much as employers / investors do._

That, and for the fact that their holdings percentage-wise are, in the vast majority of cases, typically negligible. Or even if they might potentially, in theory, be worth something, almost no one has time to investigate the company's business fundamentals to a sufficient degree to determine what chance they actually have of panning out, and hence, whether it's even remotely worth the risk.

Anyway, it's definitely not just you, it's a lot of people. The HN search engine (hn.algolia.com) is really quite good; in addition to the links others will be posting here, try some targeted keyword searches, and to read as many articles as you can on the subject. While they may not be all tailored to your specific situation, gradually the general subject will become less opaque.

</comment><comment><USER30> I worked at a pre IPO company a few years ago and it was an exception to find people who understood how things worked. Hell, even I missed some details back then, and it was only after I put in hours of research that I developed a decent grasp of the tradeoffs and deadlines. I still don't really know how to do AMT though.

There are a couple of startups that make it a point to early through what their equity means with new hires. But this puts power into the hands of employers since some will be well meaning and some will mislead.

It's unfortunate that we don't have a "yo-yo" knowledge with a easy to remember URL we can point to. Plenty of great articles out there, including by prominent VCs. But it requires a lot of digging.

<comment><USER10> >It's unfortunate that we don't have a "yo-yo" knowledge with a easy to remember URL we can point to. Plenty of great articles out there, including by prominent VCs. But it requires a lot of digging.

This seems impossible; stock options just aren't simple. There is no way for most employees to get enough information in a reasonable amount of time to make an accurate estimate of their stock options' worth.

Employees probably aren't privy to bank loan terms (e.g. converted to preferred shares in certain conditions, over time). They aren't privy to the preferred share terms (past, current or future). In the case that an employee has to purchase their shares prior to a liquidity event, they have no way to know what the future holds in terms of dilution.

It's an exercise in futility. Even if you make logical guesses, guesses are worth very little. If the economy tanks, and suddenly there's a cash crunch, your best guess may not apply. Even if things go WELL (but not smashingly well), you can get screwed by weird preference issues, dilutions or other shenanigans that weren't public knowledge that kick in.

An option to buy stock puts you last in line for money. If everyone else gets paid (vendors, banks, VCs and founders), you'll get a share of what's left (after a lock-up period). There's no good way to know what that's worth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I will suggest it is probably not just you and your friends. I am more financially savvy than most people I meet and I really don't know much at all about stock options. I imagine I would try to find out if it were being offered as part of my compensation package, but I think stock options are a fairly sophisticated financial concept and most people will not really understand them.

I say this as someone who worked in insurance, which is a financial services industry subject to federal financial regulations, such as Gramm-Leach-Bliley. So, it is not just my opinion that I know more about finance than average, I also have relevant training. And I only have a vague, hand-wavy idea of what you are talking about.

</comment><comment><USER32> _it wouldn 't be that expensive to buy them_

I hope you are taking into consideration the capital gains tax when it comes to the difference between strike price and the current fair market value of the stock. If a company is growing fast or takes on money, this can change _alot_ in even a year.

The IRS doesn't care that you may not be able to actually recognize that gain because you cannot actually sell the stock, it's considered a gain nonetheless and you will owe tax on it.

I have been in a situation where the FMV of my stock changed by 10x in the span of a year and by the time I could have actually bought any stock the tax bill would have bankrupted me.

<comment><AUTHOR> You're talking about AMT, right?

You're right, there are situations when people can't exercise their options simply because of the high tax bill.

In this particular case, with the company I'm talking about I am fairly certain (simply because I'm doing the same calculations for myself) that if he exercised his options it would not trigger AMT.

<comment><USER32> Only ISO options trigger AMT. NQSO triggers regular income tax on exercise for spread between strike price and FMV.

As far as I'm aware almost option grants are NQSO because ISOs have a bunch of other limitations that make them annoying or untenable depending on the grant size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This has always been the case. I've been in Silicon Valley for ~20 years, and even back during the dotcom days, most employees didn't know much about stocks, let alone stock options. Given the fact that it's such an important part of Silicon Valley life, you would think that people would educate themselves more, but it hasn't happened in 20+ years. It's just human nature, and some people don't care, or think it's too complicated and ignore it.

<comment><USER34> One could also see this as a large-scale demonstration that employees, in general, disagree with your assertion that stock is an important value of Silicon Valley life. It's important to founders/CXX types and venture capitalists, sure, but so far as I can see it is rarely useful for everyday workers to pay attention to their stock packages, because they are usually worthless, and opportunities to make a decision that has a meaningful impact on their value are very rare.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This bears posting, it explains _actual stock options_ , not what employees/employers bandy about as "stock options".

[http://www.investopedia.com/exam-guide/cfa- level-1/derivativ...](http://www.investopedia.com/exam-guide/cfa- level-1/derivatives/options-calls-puts.asp)

<comment><USER36> I understand the basics of actual stock options, but get confused by employee stock options. What would you say is the difference?

<comment><USER37> You have 3 significant "problems" with employee stock options:

1) need to exercise them upon leaving: when you leave a company, a company might force you to exercise the stock option within 90 days of leaving (and this takes cold hard cash too!). This gives you stock in the company, BUT:

2) taxes: you have to pay taxes on "fair market value" of this income

3) illiquidity: you can't sell it (now, and potentially ever)

There are multiple blog posts dedicated to this problem, if you want to read more and at least try to understand all the caveats and the gotchas. I am still learning those, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Can someone point me to a good guide to stock options?

I've been with a large company since graduation, with Restricted Stock Units granted to me, vesting over time as a nice bonus now and then. But in January, I start with a start-up, and I'm going to learn the reality of how stock options work first-hand. I'd like to know how to make sure I do the best I can with them.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think there is a difference between investing in stocks and receiving equity.

Since investing in stocks is so troublesome, no way to beat the market, why even bother to learn about it? And when it happen, rarely to have the chance to get equity, I think its normal.

</comment><comment><USER40> On paper I'm worth enough to pay off my mortgage. In reality I'm most likely never going to see a liquidity event for the startup from which I bought options.

The only time stock was worth something tangible for me was when I was a bootstrapped founder.

</comment><comment><USER41> No more Stock options in large companies, they offer RSU's... meaning you have to work for a startup In order to get Stock options. If you join a startup without knowing about stocks then you should start a landscaping business instead...</comment>


Internet porn blocked by British Telecom by default - <AUTHOR> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2524698/Internet-porn-blocked-BT-Automatic-filters-protect-children.html

<comment><USER2> A long time ago I was travelling in a country where they require smut filters in internet cafes. I was a chemistry grad student, and wanted to read some journals. There was a problem because one subfield of chemistry is ANALytical Chemistry.

Bayes classification was well established by then. The conclusion is that such filters don't have to work, they have to _appear_ to work. That, and concerns about the Great Firewall.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's NOT just porn they're blocking. "Extremist" sites, too.</comment>