ISO 101

ISOs also are called statutory or qualified stock options. Incentive stock options usually expire after 10 years.

Strike price: the price set by employer when ISOs are granted

exercise ISO: When the vesting period expires, the employee can purchase the shares at the strike price

Sale price: the fair market value when the employee sells the shares

ISOs are taxed in two ways. The first method is on the spread, and the second is on any increase (or decrease) in the stock's value when it is sold.

The spread between the fair market value of the stock exercised and the option's strike price is considered income for AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) purposes if you exercised ISO shares and did not sell them in the same calendar year. If the shares were exercised and sold in the same calendar year (i.e. same-day sale), the sale price and sale date are indicated on statement of taxable income, and AMT need not be calculated.

The income from ISOs is subject to regular income tax and alternative minimum tax, but it is not taxed for Social Security and Medicare purposes.

A qualifying disposition for an ISO is taxed as a capital gain at long-term capital gains tax rates and on the difference between the selling price and the cost of the option.

For qualifying disposition, the shares must be held for more than one year from the date of exercise and two years from the time of the grant. Both conditions must be met for the profits to count as capital gains rather than earned income.

Take an example:

Strike price: $3

Fair market value on exercise day: $63

Sale price: $163

Case 1: same-day sale

$63 - $3 = $60 will be considered as ordinary income and report on W-2, no AMT

Case 2: exercise and hold to be qualifying disposition (1 year after exercise, 2 years after grant)

$63 - $3 = $60 will be subject for AMT on the exercise year

$163 - $63 = $100 will be considered as long-term capital gain (need to double confirm)

See tax tips from turbo tax with all cases

https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/investments-and-taxes/incentive-stock-options/L4azWgfwy

There is some risk of making a big enough profit from the sale of ISOs to trigger the federal alternative minimum tax. That usually applies only to people with very high incomes and very substantial options awards. However, you will also generally earn an AMT credit in that year. You can use the credit to lower your tax bill in later years. Unfortunately, there are limitations on when you can use an AMT credit.

See https://www.thebalance.com/incentive-stock-options-3192970 for reference

读书笔记 - Principles

Ray Dalio shared his principles of life and work using three parts and 567 pages. After he went over his life and work experiences from 1949 to 2017, then he used two major parts to discuss life principles and work principles.

Life Principles

• Embrace reality and deal with it
• Use the 5-step process to get what you want out of life
• Be radically open-minded
• Understand that people are wired very differently
• Learn how to make decisions effectively

Work Principles
To get the culture right

• Trust in radical truth and radical transparency
• Cultivate meaningful work and meaningful relationships 
• Create a culture in which it is okay to make mistakes and unacceptable not to learn from them
• Get and stay in sync
• Believability weight your decision making
• Recognize how to get beyond disagreements

To get the people right

• Remember that the WHO is more important than the WHAT
• Hire right, because the penalties of hiring wrong are huge
• Constantly train, test, evaluate, and sort people

To build and evolve your machine

• Manage as someone operating a machine to achieve a goal
• Perceive and don't tolerate problems
• Diagnose problems to get at their root causes
• Design improvements to your machine to get around your problems
• Do what you set out to do
• Use tools and protocols to shape how work is done
• Don't overlook governance

Key takeaways

• Pain + Reflection = Progress
• 5 steps:  Goals -> Problems -> Diagnosis -> Design -> Doing
• 2 barriers: ego barrier, blind spot barrier
• Thoughtful disagreement
• Get the right people in the right roles in support of your goal
• Decision making is a two-step process (learning then deciding)
• A believability-weighted idea meritocracy is the best system for making effective decisions
• Idea meritocracy = Radical truth + Radical transparency + Believability-weighted decision making
• Responsible party will be the person who bears the consequences of what is done
• Pay attention to people's track records
• When you know what someone is like, you know what you can expect from them
• Provide constant feedback
• Tough love is both the hardest and the most important type of love to give
• Understand the differences between managing, micromanaging, and not managing
• Clearly assign responsibilities
• Don't treat everyone the same - treat them appropriately
• Hold yourself and your people accoutable
• Be very specific about problems
• Remember that almost everything will take more time and cost more money than you expect