If a significant part of your compensation comes in the form of company stock — RSUs, ISOs, NSOs, or some combination — you already know the upside. You may not have fully reckoned with the complexity. We work with employees at Alphabet, Intuit, and other major technology companies to build financial plans that account for what equity compensation actually means in practice: concentrated single-stock exposure that typically keeps growing, tax events that require proactive management, and a financial picture that can change dramatically depending on what the company's stock does, what happens in the broader market, and what happens in your career and life.
The problem with equity compensation as a financial plan
Equity grants create a specific and under-appreciated risk: the steady accumulation of a large, concentrated position in a single company — in the same sector your career and family depends on. If the company thrives, everything compounds in your favor. If it doesn't — a corporate restructuring, a prolonged drawdown, an industry-wide correction, new competitive threats — your portfolio and your income can take a hit simultaneously. We see a common pattern with tech employees: significant wealth on paper, far less diversification than they realize, and a tax situation that makes reducing the concentration feel expensive. The position keeps growing faster than it gets managed. The goal isn't to eliminate your employer stock — that's often neither practical nor desirable. The goal is to build a plan that systematically reduces concentration over time, manages the tax impact intelligently, and ensures that your financial security doesn't depend entirely on one company continuing to perform, or on you feeling like you’re on a treadmill having to run fast to keep up.
What we do
Taw-aware de-risking. Vesting in RSUs or selling appreciated equity creates taxable events. We build a systematic approach to diversification that accounts for your cost basis, your current bracket, available losses elsewhere in the portfolio, and various potential tax-deferral strategies — so that the tax tail doesn't wag the financial planning dog, but so it also doesn't get ignored.
RSU planning. RSUs are taxed as ordinary income at vesting — often at the highest marginal rates, and typically taxes are under-withheld by the company. We make sure you understand the tax impacts, help adjust estimated payments where needed to avoid under-payment penalties or sudden tax-payment cashflow crunches, and include vesting schedules into the broader financial picture.
ISO and NSO planning. Incentive stock options require careful timing around exercise and sale decisions — the spread at exercise can trigger AMT exposure, and the window between exercise and sale affects whether gains are treated as ordinary income or preferential long-term capital gains. We work through these decisions. For early-stage company options, we also advise on 83(b) elections on restricted stock where applicable, helping you decide whether early exercise is likely to be beneficial.
Scenario planning. One of the most valuable conversations we have with clients is around scenario planning to incorporate a range of possible outcomes. What would your financial picture look like if you lost your job, had to transition to another career, had a medical issue in the family? How would we maintain your current lifestyle? Or what if this high-pay, high-stress job no longer feels sustainable at some point? What kind of encore career might you think about? A good financial plan holds up across a range of potential outcomes.
Building wealth outside the stock. While equity compensation continues to vest and accumulate, we work in parallel to build a diversified foundation for your family — taxable investment accounts, retirement accounts, tax-loss harvesting, cash flow planning, debt management, liquidity solutions, life, disability and other insurance — so that your long-term financial security isn't solely dependent on one job, one company or one stock.
The bigger picture
Many of our equity compensation clients are also thinking about larger questions alongside the portfolio: how much do we actually spend? Is maxing out my 401(k) plan enough to prepare for retirement? I’ve heard about Roth accounts but always earned too much? And what’s a Megabackdoor Roth? How much is enough to feel genuinely secure? What does early retirement or a career change really require financially? How do I build a lifestyle that doesn't require my stock to keep going up and up and up? Those conversations matter as much as the tax optimization. We think about it all.
