I have a lot of things to say about stock options from my own experience and colleagues. But I'm at work. If you wait I'll post about them later tonight. The thing you want to make sure is you want to find out whether they are either

1) ISO (Incentive stock options)

or  

2) NQ (Non-qualified stock options) 

There are different tax consequences when it comes to exercising the two different stock options and whether you decide to sell right away or hold on. You have to be careful that you don't fall into an AMT tax trap situation if they are ISO(#1). Basically, this is an weird situation when you end up owing more taxes than the value of the exercised stock options themselves. Yes, it's possible, although I doubt in the current market conditions would it occur… This was a phenoma of the dot.com  when you're issued a lot of stock options that are at the time of exercise worth a lot of money but then subsequently fall when you actually sell it.