About · ALE Stack

Your pay is the largest asset you were never taught to read

Equity compensation arrives with a grant agreement and a vesting schedule, but no instructions. Most professionals hold it for years before they understand what it is worth to them after tax.

ALE Stack exists to close that gap. It starts with how your pay works and extends to the career that earns it.

Who this is for

Written for the questions you are already asking

This publication is for professionals whose compensation includes equity, at public companies and pre-IPO.

01What do I own today, and when does the rest become mine?

02How much of each vest do I keep after tax?

03What happens to my equity if I leave or the company is acquired?

04When does a stock position stop being pay and start being concentration risk?

05Can I build a business on the side without putting my job or my equity at risk?

06How do I stay valuable as AI reshapes my profession?

If those questions sound familiar, you are in the right place.

What this is

A working curriculum, not a newsletter

The briefs are free and arrive on a schedule. The curricula are different: interactive modules and workbooks you complete with your own numbers.

You finish a module with a decision made or a document understood.

Where your advisors fit

Your advisors manage your assets and your tax bill. You manage your pay.

Your CPA and your financial advisor each do work you should not attempt alone. Their advice is only as good as the picture you bring them.

ALE Stack gives you that picture. You arrive at each conversation knowing what you hold and which decisions are coming.

The portfolio

Two lanes, one balance sheet

Lane 1 · Your pay and what it becomes

04 Form 04 · OwnershipThe Total Comp Playbook Read your compensation the way the people who designed it do. RSUs, options, ESPP, performance equity, deferred compensation, and the agreements behind them. One full arc for public-company employees and one for pre-IPO. 05 Form 05 · WealthThe AI-Augmented Investor The Playbook captures the equity. This curriculum manages what it becomes, often the largest single-stock position of your life. AI does the analyst hours, and each decision stays yours. 07 Form 07 · The SynthesisThe Personal Balance Sheet Your compensation and your holdings, consolidated onto one statement. You read your own finances the way an analyst reads a company.

Lane 2 · The career that earns it, and the option to leave it Included with every paid subscription

01 Form 01 · ExpertiseThe AI-Augmented Expert Integrate AI into how you think and decide, so experience compounds. 02 Form 02 · LeverageThe System Builder Produce results larger than your job description. 03 Form 03 · TimeThe Capacity System Protect the hours where your judgment earns its premium. 06 Form 06 · IndependenceThe Solo Founder For the business you start while employed, built to replace the job. You time the exit around your vesting and structure the entity correctly. You run it as an AI orchestrator, doing work that once required a first round of hires.

08 Form 08 · NetworkingAX Relationship SystemStandalone module Replace ad-hoc networking with a system that runs on cadence. Open the module

The name

Asset = Liability + Equity

ALE is the accounting equation. A career is not measured by promotions. It is measured by the balance sheet those promotions create.

Every curriculum here feeds that statement, and the Personal Balance Sheet is where you read it.

Where to begin

Enter where your career is right now

Start with The Total Comp Playbook if you are not sure. It covers the decisions with the nearest deadlines.

You do not have to take a curriculum whole. Every module stands alone, so begin with the situation in front of you: a new offer, a blackout window, an acquisition rumor, a promotion cycle.

What connects it

Every major pay decision crosses more than one discipline

A single vest touches your compensation plan, your tax return, your portfolio, and your career timing. Each of your advisors sees one of those clearly.

ALE Stack shows you how they connect, so the decision you make in one does not quietly undo another.

What a paid subscription includes

A finished body of work, and one you can enter anywhere

Free

Briefs, essays & previews

Both briefs, selected essays, and module previews.

Paid

The complete portfolio

Every curriculum

Every interactive module

Every workbook

Every future curriculum as it is released

full curricula

112

interactive modules

workbooks

arcs, public and pre-IPO

All of it is built and live today.

Why I built this

I have sat on both sides of the table

I have designed the plans. Building executive compensation from the company side teaches you what each provision is built to do.

I have held the equity. One pre-IPO company stalled for years, the kind the Pre-IPO arc calls a zombie. Another ended in an acquisition and a real liquidity event.

I have advised on the wealth, working with high-income and high-net-worth clients. As a CPA, I have coached technology professionals through building businesses while still employed.

I am also a process and systems engineer. Every curriculum and every module here was designed and built by one person orchestrating AI.

Each of those seats showed me one piece. I built ALE Stack so you can see the whole board without paying the tuition I paid.

Markets change. Your understanding of your pay compounds.

Educational disclaimer

Last updated: August 27, 2026

Educational use only. This content is general educational material provided for informational purposes only. It is not professional advice of any kind, legal, tax, investment, accounting, financial, career, or otherwise, and creates no advisory, fiduciary, or attorney–client relationship. It is not a recommendation to take or refrain from any action, and to the extent it touches securities, is not a recommendation to buy, sell, hold, exercise, or transact in any security, including any security of your employer.

This curriculum teaches educational methods for organizing your own analysis and questions; it does not provide investment advice, does not promise any investment performance or outcome, and no result is guaranteed or implied.

Discussions of securities laws, insider trading policies, and trading plans are general descriptions, not legal advice; your obligations depend on your company’s policies, your role, and current law, consult your company’s compliance function and your own securities lawyer before acting.

AI-generated output can be incomplete or wrong and must be independently verified against source documents.

The information is general, may not fit your situation, and may become outdated as laws, terms, and circumstances change. Any examples and figures are hypothetical and illustrative only.

Consult your own qualified, licensed professionals before acting.

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