Due to high demand, our advisory is at capacity. We’re accepting introductory calls only, with new client plans delivered from 10 May 2026.
Your RSUs Are Down. Here’s Why That’s Not the Point.
Over the past three weeks, 9 clients from Microsoft, HubSpot and Atlassian reached out with some version of the same message.
The wording was different each time. The share prices were different. The vesting schedules were different. But the frustration and anxiety underneath every message was identical:
“With the price down from earlier this year… should we wait to sell?”
Nine people. Nine different families. Nine different sets of goals. And every single one of them was staring at a chart, or hearing the news trying to find the answer in a line that moves up and down without any regard for what they’re actually trying to build.
I understand the instinct. When a stock you hold drops, selling feels like locking in a loss. Waiting feels like patience. Like discipline. Like you’re playing the long game when you are forced to.
But here’s what I’ve come to know after working 20+ years with tech employees: in most of these situations, waiting isn’t a strategy. It’s a feeling dressed up as a strategy.
I don't really care what your company share price is. Here is why:
The Question That Changes Everything
When a client comes to me frozen by the price, I ask them one question before we look at a single number:
If your employer had paid you in cash instead of stock, how much of that cash would you use to buy their shares today?
Take a moment with that.
Not “do you believe in the company and what you are doing in it?” Not “do you think it’ll recover?” But if you had the dollar value of your vested RSUs sitting in your bank account right now, how much of it would you voluntarily put back into a single stock?
Almost every time, the answer is the same. Very little. Or none at all.
And that gap between what they hold and what they’d willingly buy is where the real conversation begins.
Because if you wouldn’t choose to buy it today, the question isn’t whether to sell. The question is what’s been stopping you from selling anyway?
What the Price Is Actually Telling You
Here’s the part most tech professionals miss: the share price doesn’t tell you whether to sell. It tells you how much capital you have available to deploy toward what you actually want.
That’s it.
The price going down doesn’t mean the decision to diversify is wrong. It doesn’t mean you should wait. It just changes the number you’re working with. The logic of the decision, the reason to act remains exactly the same whether the stock is up 30% or down 20%.
The only price you can act on is today’s price. Not the price it was at peak. Not the price you hope it gets back to. Today’s price. Everything else is noise. That is because you have a strategy.
And building your family’s financial future on the hope that a chart returns to a specific number is not a plan. It’s a wish.
Meet James
James is a senior engineer at Atlassian. He’s been there six years, through multiple vest cycles, and has built up a significant holding in company stock. By any measure, he’s done well.
But when his daughter turned 16, something shifted. He started thinking seriously about setting her up not just with an inheritance someday, but with a real asset she could benefit from in her twenties. An investment property. Something tangible. Something that generates income and builds equity independent of any employer. Makes perfect sense with how crazy property prices are going!
When Atlassian’s share price softened earlier this year, James called me. His instinct was to wait. To let it recover before selling.
I asked him the cash question. He laughed.
“Honestly? None of it. I wouldn’t buy the stock right now.”
So we reviewed the plan once again. What would it take to fund the deposit on a property for his daughter? What was the tax position on selling a portion of his RSUs now versus waiting? What did the opportunity cost look like if he delayed 12 months?
The numbers made the decision clear. We sold a defined tranche not everything, just enough to fund the goal and began the process of setting his daughter up with her first asset before she turned 18.
The stock has moved since then. Some days up, some days down. James doesn’t watch it the way he used to. He is now confident that he gifted his daughter something that won't change in price easily or get smashed with 40% decline over a month.
You Still Win If It Rebounds
One of the most common fears I hear is this: “What if I sell and then it shoots back up?”
It’s a fair concern. And the answer is worth understanding clearly.
If the stock recovers, you still benefit. The shares you’ve kept, because almost no one sells everything rise in value. Your future RSU grants, which continue to vest, become more valuable. Your ESPP contributions buy shares at a higher price going forward.
You don’t need 100% exposure to participate in a recovery. You never did.
What you do need is enough diversification that a continued decline doesn’t derail the goals you’ve been working toward. That balance between maintaining upside and protecting your plan is what good financial strategy actually looks like.
It’s not about getting out. It’s about building something that doesn’t depend on one outcome.
Meet Sarah
Sarah works in product at HubSpot. She’s been thinking about passive income for years the kind that doesn’t depend on her showing up to work, doesn’t fluctuate with her performance reviews, and doesn’t disappear if the company restructures.
She came to me with a clear goal but a familiar hesitation. Her RSUs had dropped in value from their peak and she felt like selling now meant accepting a worse outcome than she’d planned for.
But when we looked at her actual position using my confident choice system ( My advice system built for tech professionals) the picture was different. She was sitting on significant concentration risk with more than 70% of her investable assets in a single stock. Every month she waited, that concentration either grew or shrank based on factors entirely outside her control.
We built a plan to systematically sell RSUs as they vested and redirect that capital into a diversified income-producing portfolio. Not all at once. Not in a panic. Methodically, over 18 months.
Today Sarah has her first two dividend-paying assets. The income is modest but real. And for the first time, she has a financial life that exists independently of HubSpot’s share price.
That independence that’s what she was actually after. The stock price was never the point
The Real Question
The 9 clients who reached out over the past two weeks weren’t actually asking me about the share price. Not really.
They were asking something harder. Something that doesn’t have a clean answer in a stock chart or a market forecast.
Am I going to be okay? Am I making the right decisions for my family? Am I letting fear or greed make choices that I should be making intentionally?
Those are the questions worth sitting with.
Because ten years from now, you won’t remember what HubSpot or Atlassian was trading at in early 2025. But you will remember whether you bought that property for your kids. Whether you built income that gave you options. Whether you made decisions based on what you were trying to create or whether you spent years waiting for a number on a screen to tell you it was safe to start.
The price will do what it does. It always has.
The question is what you’re building while you wait.
A quick personal update:
I am still all over the place with my house move ( big house wasn't a great idea) if you want to catch up for coffee, I am at Bunnings :)
My movement coach is doing a great job in raising my awareness on how to look after my spine and I like it, my momentum is not 100% yet.
I am fully booked until May 2026 and actually working only with selective clients, client who are taking their family's future seriously.
Whenever you're ready, here are a few ways I can help you read on where you stand, the fastest levers to pull, and whether property is your engine or your anchor. No BS. Just clarity.
-
Listen to my Podcast — real financial strategies for tech pros, no boring jargon.
-
The Wealth Byte Newsletter — quick, no-BS emails once a month.
-
Follow me on LinkedIn — over 4,000 tech pros already do.
-
Wealth Bytes - You Tube— bite-sized videos on investing, RSU, tax strategies, and building real wealth.
-
Work 1:1 with me — build a strategic, work-optional financial plan to retire early on 10-20k per month.
I hope you found this Wealth Byte beneficial. I’m Mo Shouman, a financial adviser with 20 years of experience helping professionals save on tax and grow their wealth. Book your financial clarity meeting below and discover how you can take your finances to the next level. I’m proud to be the only adviser who provides a detailed assessment of your financial position—whether you decide to work with me or not!