About Alphabet equity
Alphabet (GOOGL, HQ CA) grants RSUs to employees and also runs an Employee Stock Purchase Plan with a monthly vesting cadence. Formerly cliff-then-monthly; front-loaded grants common for senior hires.
Whether to max it
If Alphabet's ESPP has a 15% discount with a lookback, participation is typically the highest-return use of cash available to you (roughly 17-30% pre-tax per offering period). The cap is the IRS $25,000 contribution limit per calendar year.
What to do next
- Run the RSU vesting calculator against your next tranche.
- Read the complete RSU guide.
- Match with a fiduciary advisor before a meaningful event.