“Left Amazon after 4 years. Needed my RSU records clean before day one at the startup.”
Yes. I sold about 30% of my Amazon position before leaving — I was taking a significant salary cut to join a 40-person startup and needed the liquidity buffer. The rest I transferred to Rovia and kept holding. AMZN has done well enough that I don't regret keeping the bulk of it.
Morgan Stanley for the shares, a spreadsheet for the India compliance side. It worked well enough while I was at Amazon with a steady income and no reason to look at the position carefully. When I decided to leave, I realised I had 18 lots with varying cost bases and LTCG windows and no clean picture of any of it.
Leaving Amazon focuses your mind. I had 90 days from my last day to move vested shares out of the corporate plan or they'd eventually be liquidated. I needed everything in one place, clearly documented, before I started the new job. Rovia was the cleanest solution — transfer in, full lot history tracked, Schedule FA ready for next year.
Hold most of it for now. My startup comp is lower, so having the AMZN position as a backstop matters. Once I see how the startup trajectory looks in 12–18 months, I'll decide whether to sell some AMZN to invest in the startup or keep it as a separate long-term position.
Aggressive. I took a 40% salary cut to join a 40-person company. I'm clearly comfortable with risk. But I also want the AMZN holding to be the boring, stable part of my portfolio while the startup bet plays out. Even aggressive investors need some ballast.