The plan will allow non-executive employees to sell vested stock options through an online-auction exchange. Financial institutions will be able to buy vested options from Google employees at a premium to the option’s value.
This is great for employees. I don’t know of any other company that offers this right now. From what I’ve experienced through past job opportunities, when an employee is given a stock option, they must keep it. They don’t have the right to sell it. This is good and bad for the employee. The good is that the employee has invested interest in the company and some extra assets on hand. The bad is that it’s tied up in the company.
How does this effect the company? If a company offers its employees stock options, it’s providing invested interested for the company by its employees in a manner that is forcing them to invest.
This new system that Google is setting up for their employees is a work around of that model and actually allows employees to sell their stock options. Some employees may want to stick it out and keep their stock options because they’re work almost $500 a pop right now…and that’s a lot for stock.
