Episode 305 · 2025-02-12 · 46:00 · Original in Finnish
Millionaire by options, not inheritance | Riku Asikainen | Negotiator 305
Originally published as “Miljonääriksi optioilla ei perinnöllä | Riku Asikainen | Neuvottelija 305”
Riku Asikainen of Evli Growth Partners — also chair of the Finnish Venture Capital Association — and Sami Miettinen work through why employee options disappeared from Finland and what that has cost growth companies. An option is taxed as earned income on the day it is exercised, so five years of appreciation land in a single day at the top marginal rate. Asikainen's thesis has an unusual shape: because no option income arises at all today, moving to capital gains taxation cannot lose a single euro of revenue — you cannot lose from zero. Also the cap table and waterfall calculations, a buyer's bafflement at employer charges landing in an exit, Yrjö Kopra's employee share model, and a Supreme Administrative Court ruling on swapping options for shares.
Core theses
- Taxing an option as earned income on the day of exercise compresses years of appreciation into one day at the top marginal rate.
- The revenue argument is structural rather than dynamic: if no option income arises today, a change of regime cannot lose revenue that does not exist.
- Employer charges landing in an exit are the detail that surprises foreign buyers, and it is a cap table problem before it is a tax one.
- The guest chairs the industry association whose members benefit from the reform he proposes.
Watch and listen
Key moments
- 00:00 — Content warning: two economists and Finglish
- 00:38 — From Dragons' Den to a bookshop and fifty angel investments
- 02:00 — Evli Growth Partners and the scarcity of scale-up capital in Finland
- 02:42 — Down round, in Finnish
- 03:23 — The Translink SaaS index, and vertical SaaS without English
- 04:49 — Miettinen's thesis, and what an option actually is
- 06:12 — Options at Nokia, Sampo and Fortum: what happened
- 08:00 — Options are taxed as earned income on a single day
- 08:54 — The strike price and a 59 per cent marginal rate
- 10:08 — An international hire does not want Finnish options
- 10:42 — Capital gains tax would lose no revenue, because there is none
- 11:17 — A CFO paid half in options: the American model
- 11:50 — A buyer puzzled by the employer charges in an exit
- 12:08 — The cap table problem and waterfall calculations
- 14:49 — A thesis for Ahtisaari
- 15:16 — Kopra's employee share model is too complex
- 16:47 — The demand: employee options as capital income
- 17:11 — Board members, and the taxman's ownership decisions
- 18:45 — A 2025 Supreme Administrative Court ruling on options to shares
- 21:08 — Broad option pools support an IPO market
- 22:50 — Elon Musk got rich on options, not as a founder
- 24:16 — Kim Väisänen as Finland's DOGE man
- 25:20 — Option tax reform for the government's final stretch
- 26:15 — Inheritance tax: a public apology
- 27:44 — The family business lobby, and what inheritance tax costs
- 29:00 — Capital gains tax protects passive wealth
- 30:18 — Business succession relief and the 3.8 per cent effect
- 31:24 — Sweden without gift tax, and Kickstarter patrons
- 34:10 — The lock-in effect and compounding
- 36:18 — Sweden's 700 billion wealth lead
- 36:45 — Median wealth is nonetheless the same
- 38:49 — A ten per cent chance in the government programme
- 39:35 — The worst tax is the tax on earned income
- 41:31 — Finnish peculiarities in a cross-border exit
- 43:00 — Norway's wealth and exit taxes drive talent away
- 45:07 — Inner Circle: an angel against Dragons' Den
Summary
Riku Asikainen of Evli Growth Partners — also chair of the Finnish Venture Capital Association — and Sami Miettinen work through why employee options disappeared from Finland and what that has cost growth companies. An option is taxed as earned income on the day it is exercised, so five years of appreciation land in a single day at the top marginal rate. Asikainen’s thesis has an unusual shape: because no option income arises at all today, moving to capital gains taxation cannot lose a single euro of revenue — you cannot lose from zero. Also the cap table and waterfall calculations, a buyer’s bafflement at employer charges landing in an exit, Yrjö Kopra’s employee share model, and a Supreme Administrative Court ruling on swapping options for shares.
The mechanism
An employee option is taxed as earned income on the day it is exercised. Five years of appreciation therefore land in one tax year at the top marginal rate, which is why the instrument disappeared from Finnish growth companies and why an international hire treats a Finnish option grant as close to worthless.
The argument’s unusual shape
Most tax reform arguments rely on dynamic effects that the other side disputes. This one does not: if essentially no option income arises today, then moving to capital gains taxation cannot lose revenue, because there is none to lose. That is a structural claim rather than a behavioural forecast — and it is made by someone whose industry would gain from the change.
Watch
The recording lives on the Neuvottelija channel: Miljonääriksi optioilla ei perinnöllä | Riku Asikainen | Neuvottelija 305. A Finnish edition of this episode is published at www.neuvottelija.fi.
In depth
The Neuvottelija AI editions carry a long-form write-up of this episode: English · suomeksi.
Go deeper
Explore the ideas in depth
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People and topics
Guests: Riku Asikainen
Topics: Ownership, Capital & Tax M&A & Exits