Running Out Of Options

摘要

When microsoft announced last week that it would no longer give its employees stock options, it was a stunner: the business equivalent of Lance Armstrong vowing never to ride a bike again, the pope renouncing organized religion or George W. Bush picking Howard Dean as his running mate. Microsoft, after all, was the poster child for worker capitalism, proof that hard work combined with stock options could turn thousands of wage slaves into wealthy people: hence the term "Microsoft millionaire." The estimated 9,000 Microsoft millionaires helped options become a defining characteristic of the booming 1990s. Options were the turbocharger on the engine of commerce, the juicy carrot to lure low-paid dot-comers to put in 18-hour days in the hopes of becoming options bazillionaires. Options became a national obsession, a magical road to wealth. Three summers ago, when Sean Ambrose, the villain in the movie "Mission: Impossible II," held the fate of the world in his hand, he didn't demand cash or even stock. He wanted stock options.