Gravy train ends: Microsoft to end stock option plan
WinInfo | at | by Mike
Microsoft is terminating its once-lucrative stock option lure for potential employees, ending an era of "Microsoft Millionaires," and providing current employees with a more viable compensation package that includes actual shares of Microsoft stock. In the go-go 1990's, Microsoft's stock option plan helped the company lure top talent with the virtual assurance they could strike it rich at the tech industry's brightest star, and over 1000 employees became millionaires in that time. But as the stock market imploded in the late 1990's, Microsoft's earnings became rather pedestrian compared to the huge gains the company had historically made year-over-year, taking its stock price down with it. Most of the stock options Microsoft issued to employees in the late 1990's and early 2000's are "under water," or worthless, a foreign concept to the Porsche- and Lexus-driving coworkers who were fortunate enough to join the company years earlier. Something had to give, executives at the company say, or they would risk losing key employees.