“All FB employees that had vested RSUs will have to pay taxes on a $38 dollar gain based on the IPO price. They will be taxed at ordinary income levels, which means 45% (state and federal)
Stock price below $19 means that they have to sell ALL their shares to pay the taxes. That is mandatory.
On November 2012, when lockout is removed, you will have employees owing more in taxes than their shares are worth. FB will have to compensate them in some way. This will get very ugly”