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Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

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Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

#171

Post by gwbas1c »

dennisgorelik wrote: post #141
gwbas1c wrote: post #39

About $2500. It was basically a lousy tip for about 14 months work. Some context: The initial offer was either higher salary and lower equity, or lower salary and higher equity. The difference in pay was $5000 / year. Given the nature of the exit, I felt like a decent thing to do was at least make up the difference in pay. (The terms of the deal were confidential.) Things were eventually "made right" by the new owner…

> always are kept in the dark about the real value of the equity Why would shareholders stay in the dark? Is it because these employees-shareholders are not curious enough to request information about the company they own?

Because employee-shareholders are NOT owners. The system is compensation, and in practice is designed to keep employee-shareholders out of all "ownership" tasks.

Equity is really a benefit that's part of compensation; it's not the same as voting rights. I like equity because I feel like I have "skin in the game," but I never consider it ownership.

A simpler way is: you are only an owner if you have >= 1% and some kind of voting rights.

Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

#172

Post by pm90 »

nojvek wrote: post #169
pm90 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually an initial grant of 600K in RSU's in a FAANG would probably net that much with 4 years of rapid growth in stock price. And don't forget the cash component isn't peanuts either.

Is 600K RSUs a normal thing? I’m guessing it’s only for senior+ engineers only. That’s a ridiculous amount of money. Microsoft feels very stingy if this is the normal.

The old guard (MS, IBM etc.) seem stingy indeed when it comes to comp (except for executives, who seem to be compensated somewhat similarly across the board).

The newer software firms are much much better at adequately compensating software engineers, and especially senior software engineers. If you are a senior software engineer you should seriously consider trying getting compensated along those lines.

Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

#173

Post by q845712 »

jsnell wrote: post #94
q845712 wrote: post #15

I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and I only lasted just over a year. However, during that year they IPO'd, and because I made it over the vesting cliff I was able to buy my options on my way out. Ballpark numbers: I had 300 options at $5. post-IPO price was around $15. I did the "sell to buy" thi…

Your numbers don't add up at all. - 20k total shares would mean a market cap of $1M, and an IPO price of $300k. Those are not viable numbers. - 20k total shares vs. you having 300 options means you would have been given 1.5% of the company in one year. That's totally absurd given you worked there for a year as an entry-level engineer and the company had several hundred employees.

I agree that I must have misunderstood the reporting of the numbers of shares. the numbers i'm sure of are the rough number of options that i had vested after 1+ year.

Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

#174

Post by q845712 »

kemitche wrote: post #34
q845712 wrote: post #15

I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and I only lasted just over a year. However, during that year they IPO'd, and because I made it over the vesting cliff I was able to buy my options on my way out. Ballpark numbers: I had 300 options at $5. post-IPO price was around $15. I did the "sell to buy" thi…

"shares held(000s)" reads to me like "thousands of shares".

good - so the numbers make more sense if they have three orders of magnitude more shares than i guessed above. Thank you!

Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?

#175

Post by q845712 »

sk5t wrote: post #33
q845712 wrote: post #15

I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and I only lasted just over a year. However, during that year they IPO'd, and because I made it over the vesting cliff I was able to buy my options on my way out. Ballpark numbers: I had 300 options at $5. post-IPO price was around $15. I did the "sell to buy" thi…

I've never heard of an IPO'd company--meaning one that's listed on a public market like the NYSE or NASDAQ--with such thin trading, nor have I ever heard of option grants measured in hundreds...

I think the original grant (4-year vesting etc) must have been for around 1,000 shares. and I joined pre-IPO. but I agree it was not a large grant, even for an entry-level position. Nonetheless it's the only one I've gotten that's worth anything right now!
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