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“They can say I want something new, I want to build something fresh and take a risk, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” Gélinas said, adding young people have different parameters. “They are willing to take that risk if it means living with my parents a few more years.”

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Employers also embrace stock options because they don’t immediately vest and tie you to a company, making it a powerful retention device if things go well at the company.

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Everyday employees don’t always have access to stock awards, but most publicly traded companies offer employees the opportunity to purchase shares, sometimes at a discount to the market price. Gélinas said the greater the employer contribution, the more likely there is a pickup in the plan.

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He also said the safer the company, the more likely you are to participate in a share purchase plan. But, generally, employees see them as a simpler benefit compared to stock awards.

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Of course, none of these compensation awards are going to come without paying taxes on them since even a discount on buying your own company’s shares is taxable, Yannick Lemay, a tax training specialist at H&R Block Canada, said.

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The advantage of participating in a startup is that if you make, say, a $250,000 contribution for a one-quarter share of a $1-million company, that’s a future tax consequence when that equity is cashed out. If you get one quarter of the company instead of pay, that is compensation and is taxed.

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“When it’s a public corporation, it is easier to know the value of the compensation you are receiving,” Lemay said, adding private companies can be harder to value.

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There are different ways to structure share awards, some of which could be more appealing to employees based on tax consequences.

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Ted Rechtshaffen, chief executive of TriDelta Private Wealth, said he has clients who have gone to startups because they were attracted by the chance to accumulate wealth fast.

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“It’s kind of like a private/equity investment or investing in an individual company. One of the things you have to say is you could lose all your money on this,” he said. “You have to say, ‘Invest to a level where you will be OK if you get nothing.’”

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Ultimately, he said your salary is probably “watered down” by stock option compensation.

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“It’s a smaller segment here, but it exists,” he said.

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Even buying your company’s shares carries some risk. If you are a Canadian bank employee loaded up on your company’s shares, you can point to a 65 per cent return in the past year on the shares you likely got at a discount.

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But imagine if you worked for BCE Inc., once described as the most widely held company in Canada. Those shares are worth about half what they were four years ago.

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Rechtshaffen said the bottom line is that you don’t want all your money in one stock, even if it is your own company.

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“It’s an emotional and financial thing,” he said about having equity in your company. “Sometimes you think there will be a huge payout. Sometimes it happens, and sometimes it doesn’t happen.”

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Those SpaceX employees looked like lottery winners when the stock IPOed at US$135, and it’s since fallen below that level. Musk is no longer a trillionaire, and some of those millionaires are probably not seven-figure winners anymore.

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Obviously, every early employee of SpaceX is still a big winner, but getting paid in stock means you can be a loser, too. Nobody talks about those stories.

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