It does not matter. The option Pool will expire when you leave and go back into the company stock

bfevfpfkj - assuming you want to exercise and might ever pay US taxes, please look into the 83(b) election and QSBS - both are time critical for you right now - you would file an 83(b) election if you plan on ever exercising (saves a lot in taxes in the short run) and you would ask for a letter from the company verifying their status as a qualified small business (can save millions in taxes if you hold for 5+ years).

also, please keep in mind that for a lot of silicon valley companies there exists a strong shadow secondary market for employees who can sell their shares through forward contracts / other derivatives. so the options are almost definitely not worth 0 unless you just hold them all to IPO (bad idea if you can avoid it). the strike price on your options will be the current “fair market value” according to the IRS, but that has nothing to do with how much you can sell the stock for on the secondary market for companies worth < $50M, it’ll be ~2-3x less than the preferred price (preferred price how much investors paid for special shares) in the last round, and for companies worth > $1b, it’ll be ~10-20% less than the preferred price (ballpark). the FMV tends to be 4-5x less than the preferred price so there’s almost always some arbitrage in exercising even if the company’s valuation does not increase.

happy to answer more specific questions since i’ve some personal experience here

Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to find out legalities and/or liabilites of working for a US company while traveling and working abroad?

Probably you’ll need to clarify if you’re a US resident/citizen or not, where your residency is and whether you’d be an actual employee versus independent contractor.

The US won’t care, but you may run afoul of local labor laws, but the question becomes whether anybody would ever find out.

So yesterday a company fired me on my first day of work for setting an "away from desk" Slack status... I had turned down a freelance opportunity that paid $4000/wk to take this job, and that opportunity may be permanently lost now. I feel that I've been injured and experienced a significant loss, but is there anything I can do about that? I had an "at-will" employment with this company that explicitly stated that either party could terminate the agreement at any time with or without cause. It's a shitty agreement, but pretty much the norm in the US. Just trying to figure out if there's any way to recover my losses here or if I should just focus my energy on finding a new job.

Name and shame

Talk to an employment attorney. At Will doesn’t mean they can’t ignore employment laws.

That was my gut feeling zrpxtilddxhkj but I don't know if it's worth the time and money to pursue. I also don't really know how to find an employment attorney.

Worth a quick call to a few attorneys. I would look in the city where the company is located.

Does the US have some sort of labor board help line? In Canada we have a number you can call for free and ask questions about employment laws and get advice before contacting a lawyer.

That's insane. Definetly invest some time to check if it's legal. Some social media shaming sounds appropriate too.

Fired without cause?

Yeah, US labor laws are shit in that sense

damn this sounds ridiculous

Sounds incredibly harsh. Almost feels like some other reason. Finding people is time consuming, and you don't just kick them after a single day.
Personally, I wouldn't bother pursuing it. You're unlikely to have any success, although it depends on which state they're located in. Each state has different labor laws.

Companies are dumping employees right now to conserve cash. Might just be a casualty of that, and them not wanting to worry existing employees

Anybody know a good trademark lawyer in the U.S.? A company has a trademark of the word “kudos” claim that my usage of the word in my app named “KudosBot” violates their trademarks. Mostly want to know what my options are.

Where have they trademarked the term and for what areas of business

i’m still new so i can’t post links but their company name is kudos, inc

I’m sorry I don’t have a lawyer recommendation. But from my past experiences I’d recommend researching this company thoroughly to understand their business. And also research their trademarks. Their trademark should only apply to certain products/areas of businesses. This information will be helpful when speaking with a lawyer

Thanks, unfortunately I paid $3k for my domain which is kudosbot^com :neutral_face:. I don’t think I’ll have the resources to go to court and fight them on this. They’ve raised $5mil and are operating mostly with enterprise contracts

I'm not a legal expert at all, but from what I remember, if you're not a competitor and there's no reasonable way someone could either confuse your business with theirs or mistake your product for being affiliated with them, you shouldn't have to worry too much. But definitely at least speak to a lawyer.

So in this case I am a direct competitor

Ah well, that might be more of an issue then.

they could also go after your domain. Would be a simple fight in a UDRP proceeding to take it from you.

Ok thanks guys. I'll probably just rename in that case 😑

Hey folks.
So I would like to create a company which would earn money on upwork. I do that now for another company, but we will part ways in some time.
• I would need it to be able to work with upwork and payoneer (I guess). Ideally stripe as well.
• I would need everything to be done remotely cause opening a bank account in person is not an option (for obvious reasons lol)
• Obiously I'd like lower taxes, since competition is rather hard there. I guess most of my income from clients in the US and EU I suppose (and not sure how offshore income rules work).
• I'm a Russian national so i guess it limits my options somewhat
As I understand my options are HK, Singapore, Estonia and smth like Delaware LLC? Am I wrong?

Just FYI - Payoneer completely ceases it's operations in Russia on May 27th, if you were considering it.

As a Russian national you'll need proof of address from another country

Singapore incorporation + Stripe is the route I'd recommend

What would these compromises consist of?

UK LLP + Stripe costs pennies and you are only taxable in your own country

And in Russia it turns into a whole headache reporting your overseas controlled company.
But thanks for the UK LLC idea, I'll check it out!

Hey guys, thank you for answers everyone. I reached out to Upwork and here's what I got:
> You can incorporate your Agency to the company account which means the agency's location can be different from the Agency Freelancers location, However, please note that the payment methods will depend on the Agency owners location. That means, you will not be able to use your company bank account that's located in another country to withdraw from your Agency.
So if you're like me and it's where you get your clients, you can effectively register only where you live.

I have an article and a website for you that will answer your questions, but the Nomad Slackbot keeps deleting them, so sorry. But I have the answer for you...

bjfrdrew come on dude, just put an empty space inside a link and remove http, that's 101