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A private company that I accepted a job offer with, got acquired by a public well known company. I should start there on June 1, 2011. They notified me that the offer is still valid.

The offer says: "Upon successful completion of your first 90 days of employment and subject to approval by the board of directories of the company, you will be granted an incentive stock option to purchase 25000 shares of the company's common stock. The option will be granted under the terms and conditions of the company's stock option and incentive plan, as amended, and in accordance between you and the company to be executed after your 90 days review".

What should I expect to happen with my stock options?

Thank you!

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1 Answer

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That depends. Chance is your offer letter is not legally binding in any way (it already says "subject to approval by the board of directors") so it's really up to them to do whatever they want, knowing that if they screw you over too badly, you'll quit.

Most likely you will receive a stock option grant in the mothership that is comparable to the stock option grants that company is already granting its new hires, but you should be careful to pipe up every few weeks and ask them "hey, what about my grant?", because it's real easy for them to forget things like that in the shuffle.

Keep in mind that in this particular situation the option grant you're going to get is, frankly, worth a whole lot less than it would have been if you had gone in before the company was acquired. Stock in a small private company can go up in value 100x. Stock in a giant public company can't.

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