How stock options made him an overnight millionaire

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  NPR.

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  When Juan and Hernandez came to work at SpaceX in 2013, employees' stock options were not front of mind.

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  You're like looking at the bottom line, like how much you actually paint,

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  how much you can actually take home to feed the family.

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  Especially me, I had no experience with the stock options or the market or anything like that.

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  Eventually, Juan started to learn that shares in SpaceX were growing and growing in value.

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  You would go on your little web page and they would show the value kind of going up

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  and you get the emails, you're like, huh, this is this is interesting.

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  This is starting to be worth something.

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  Tech firms aren't the only businesses that give their employees shares of the company.

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  In fact, sailors hunting whales hundreds of years ago would often get paid a share of the profit.

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  But startups giving all employees stock options is a particularly Californian

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  model that might explain why the state is a tech hub.

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  This is the Indicator for Planet Money.

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  I'm Darian Woods.

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  And I'm Waylon Wong.

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  Today on the show, why do Californian tech companies love to give their employees stock options?

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  We learned what they are, why they might be the secret ingredient to Silicon Valley, and how they've changed WAN's life.

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  Support for NPR comes from IBM.

• 01:28

  On Smart Talks with IBM, host Malcolm Gladwell speaks with leaders

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