Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 4] - What And Why (RSUs/Bonuses)

Equity compensation takes center stage in big tech careers—here are the core points from the lesson:

- RSUs (Restricted Stock Units) are a major component of compensation in public tech companies and grow more significant with seniority
- They're granted based on stock price at the time and typically vest over several years, often with cliffs and monthly or quarterly schedules
- Vesting structures and timing vary by company; the value ultimately depends on the stock’s price at the time the shares vest
- Companies use RSUs to conserve cash, encourage retention through "golden handcuffs," and align employee incentives with shareholder value

Next steps with Andy:

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 3] - Foundational Tax Concepts

Understanding how taxes work is key to making smart decisions about equity compensation—here are the core points from the lesson:

- Gross income is reduced by payroll taxes and deductions to determine adjusted gross income (AGI) and taxable income, which drives your federal tax liability
- Long-term capital gains (assets held over a year) receive lower federal tax rates than ordinary income, often saving high earners significant amounts
- State tax treatment varies—most states don’t offer preferential rates for long-term gains, and some, like Massachusetts, penalize short-term gains more heavily
- Investment losses can offset gains and up to $3,000 of ordinary income per year, but “wash sale” rules can disallow losses if you repurchase too soon
- The Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) may kick in if you're using lots of deductions or exercising incentive stock options, so it’s important to model this in advance

Next steps with Andy:

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 2] - The Big Picture

Equity compensation can be a powerful but complex part of your total rewards in tech. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Startup equity is high risk, with data showing over 60% of startups from 2018 have already shut down, and only a tiny fraction have reached IPO or unicorn status
- Multiple cognitive biases—like endowment effect, loss aversion, and optimism bias—can cloud judgment and lead to poor decisions about holding or selling stock
- Emotional and social factors, such as FOMO, herding behavior, and recency bias, often push people to mirror peers rather than make rational equity decisions
- Selling strategies can range from immediate liquidation to goal-based triggers (e.g., home down payment), percentage-based sales, or predefined holding periods
- It's crucial to plan ahead, especially around liquidity events, and work with financial professionals to optimize tax implications and align decisions with personal goals

Next steps with Andy:

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

Maximize Your Equity And Benefits In Tech [Part 1] - Introduction

Hi, I’m Andy​​! 👋 In this course we’re going to cover the most common forms of equity compensation and benefits in tech, break them down, and provide strategies and thought frameworks for helping you maximize them.

- [Connect with Andy on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/andymoranio)
- [Leave feedback and/or sign up for Andy’s newsletter](https://subscribepage.io/taroequitycourse)
- [Schedule a consultation](http://adastrafp.com/contact-us/)

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 15] - Conclusion

Congratulations on making it to the end of the course! While watching great content like this feels good - It doesn't actually mean anything unless you put the learnings into practice. With that being said, here's some ideas for "homework" for you:

- Start sleeping consistently every day, even on weekends
- If you have a task or project that will take at least 1 week, decompose it into at least 3 different sub-tasks
- Set up a meeting with yourself on a regular basis to reflect on your productivity
- Go through your calendar, audit all the meetings, and kill as many as you can

If you want to learn how Rahul's cofounder Alex made $750,000 per year at Robinhood working \~35 hour weeks, you can go to the next level and take his much deeper and more concrete productivity course here: [Maximize Your Productivity As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/maximize-your-productivity-as-a-software-engineer/)

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 14] - Reflect

Reflecting regularly is a powerful habit that can dramatically improve your productivity and self-awareness. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Daily micro-reflections and bi-weekly deep dives help you identify patterns in when and why you're productive or struggling
- Documenting reflections as written artifacts (e.g. notes or voice memos) forces clarity and gives you useful data over time
- Review both the nature of your work and the relationships that support or hinder your progress—productivity often depends on collaboration
- You can keep reflections private, share them with a manager, or even make them public to foster accountability and gain feedback from others

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 13] - Your Phone Is A Menace

Your phone can be both a powerful tool and a massive productivity killer—how you manage it makes all the difference. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- To prevent unconscious distractions, keep your phone physically out of reach during deep work and turn off nearly all notifications by default
- Replace passive phone checking with active forecasting—mentally plan what you’ll do next based on the outcome of a task to stay engaged
- Use batching strategies (e.g. scheduled email checks) to reduce context switching and maintain focus
- Aim to move up the PEM framework: from Pleasure (mindless scrolling) → Engagement (being immersed in your craft) → Meaning (working toward a long-term purpose)

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 12] - Set Up Your Calendar

Segmenting your calendar with intention can drastically increase your deep work capacity and reduce distraction. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Decompose your calendar by assigning specific time blocks for high-leverage work, shallow tasks (like email), and recovery to reduce ambiguity and improve clarity
- Avoid scattering meetings across the week—batch them into clusters (especially 1:1s) to preserve longer stretches of focus time
- Use your influence to improve team-wide productivity by suggesting standardized no-meeting days or more structured meeting schedules
- Even if you don’t follow your calendar plan perfectly, the act of time blocking improves your estimation skills and helps build a rhythm for deep work

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 11] - Decompose Aggressively

Decomposition is one of the most reliable habits for making progress feel easy, especially when applied daily. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Breaking down large, ambiguous tasks into small, concrete steps helps reduce mental friction and makes it easier to start taking action
- Practicing decomposition builds leadership skills and supports team collaboration, since assigning scoped work is essential for effective delegation
- Writing down one key task the night before primes your brain to subconsciously begin planning, leading to more clarity and momentum the next morning

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 10] - The Simple Playbook For Sleep

Sleep is often underestimated, yet it’s one of the most powerful levers for improving productivity, health, and mental clarity. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Sleep has greater long-term health impact than alcohol or smoking, and chronic deprivation leads to worse mood, lower energy, and reduced cognitive function
- Treating yourself as “a good sleeper” and following a consistent wind-down routine (e.g. reading, brushing teeth early, reflecting on the next day) can drastically improve sleep quality
- Physical activity, especially group-based with accountability, helps regulate sleep and creates natural productivity deadlines
- Even small efforts like 10–15 minutes of movement or consistent pre-bed rituals can create compounding benefits for both rest and output

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 9] - Say FU (Focus Uninterrupted) To Meetings

Sitting through too many meetings can quietly kill productivity. This video offers a framework for reclaiming your time and focusing on deep work. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- One time in Rahul's past, there was very senior Facebook engineer boosted output and morale by declaring “meeting bankruptcy” and skipping all meetings for a month to focus on heads-down coding
- Most meetings aren’t necessary—test their value by asking if they make you more effective and whether the same information could be shared asynchronously
- As you get familiar with your company’s culture, work with your manager to trim or redesign meetings that don’t drive impact, especially recurring ones

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 8] - Do Work When You're Working

When engineers say they’ve been “working all day,” that time often includes distractions, shallow tasks, or unnecessary overhead. To truly be productive, you have to focus on high-leverage, distraction-free work. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Real productivity comes from deep work—uninterrupted, focused effort on cognitively demanding tasks—not from staying busy or checking email 50+ times a day
- Recognize and minimize "startup costs" like syncing code, building the app, and reviewing changes, so you can spend more time in the value-generating loop of building and debugging
- Block off long stretches of time for deep work rather than relying on scattered 30–45 minute sessions that get consumed by overhead
- Automate or script repetitive setup tasks (e.g. syncing and builds) to reduce friction and start meaningful work faster each day
- Prioritize difficult, ambiguous tasks early—they often influence downstream work, and avoiding them leads to fake progress and missed deadlines

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 7] - Just One Thing

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 6] - The #1 Way To Create Accountability

When motivation fades, there's a simple yet powerful way to regain momentum—build accountability into your workflow. Here are the key ideas from the lesson:

- Social pressure is more powerful than self-discipline alone, making accountability partners or group settings highly effective for staying on track

- Benefits of accountability include learning from others, drawing inspiration, and getting called out when you're making excuses or losing focus

- Tactics include going into the office, joining virtual co-working platforms, setting review checkpoints, or scheduling deadlines—even artificial ones—to create external motivation and structure

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 5] - Debug Your Productivity

Procrastination thrives when you confuse learning with progress. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Jumpstarting productivity means producing *before* you feel ready — even a rough draft unlocks momentum
- Replace the one-way flow of tutorials with a feedback loop: code → learn → refine
- Writing personal notes or process logs boosts clarity and reduces future ramp-up time
- Systematize repeatable work into reusable components to move faster with each project
- Build a library of “done before” artifacts you can copy, tweak, and ship again and again

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 4] - The Most Important Productivity Tip Nobody Follows

Productivity isn't just about doing things faster - That’s only half the story. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Productivity isn't just about efficiency, it's about working efficiently on *important* tasks that actually move the needle
- Prioritization requires painful trade-offs—you must let go of low-impact activities even if they're easy, fun, or popular
- Define your personal values and consciously deprioritize areas that don’t align with them, like staying updated on politics or reading a book a week
- A simple yet powerful framework for teams is evaluating tasks based on impact and time required, then prioritizing high-impact, low-time work first

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 3] - Build A System

Most people rely on fluctuating willpower to be productive—but the most effective creators use systems. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Systems make good behavior automatic by reducing cognitive load and accounting for natural fluctuations in willpower, energy, and focus
- Structure your day around your strengths—use mornings for disciplined deep work, afternoons for accountability-based tasks, and evenings for creative exploration
- Focus on generating artifacts like notes, calendar blocks, or test plans to capture progress, clarify your thinking, and preserve valuable context
- Habit stacking and predefined triggers make consistent output easier and help you avoid relying on short-term motivation or memory

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 2] - The Right Mentality For Productivity

Many engineers think their lack of productivity is a motivation issue, so they start off by focusing on that. However, this is usually not the right way to go. Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Action creates motivation, not the other way around—starting small builds momentum
- Progress triggers a positive spiral: productivity → feeling good → more productivity
- You only need discipline for the first 5 minutes—after that, the task usually becomes easier

20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination [Part 1] - Rahul's History With Procrastination

Welcome to our "20 Years Of Fighting Procrastination In 1 Hour" course! Here are the core points from the lesson:

- Your instructor Rahul Pandey goes through his personal experience struggling to get stuff done (and learning how to fix that)
- Focus on building systems that make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing, rather than relying on willpower
- The advice is tailored for people with autonomy over their time, not for those in reactive or manager-style roles

Manager vs. Maker schedule: <https://paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

Become A Debugging Master [Part 19] - Go Deeper: Follow Through

Related courses:

- [Ask Great Questions That Get Great Answers Quickly](https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/)
- [Level Up Your Code Quality As A Software Engineer](https://www.jointaro.com/course/level-up-your-code-quality-as-a-software-engineer/)

Tech Career Growth Videos

Our instructional videos provide software engineers with insights needed for career growth. Masterclasses go incredibly in-depth on a specific tech topic while case studies are real examples from established engineering leaders.