Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YC and Founders Pledge

blog.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 99 posts

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#81

Post by bicyclecard »

pb wrote: post #50
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #8

I understand giving to charity is great and all but what about employees 10, 35, 97? So someone works hard at a start-up but they weren't among the first dozen or so to join then they likely get next to nothing from an exit. So how about, instead of a pledge to give to charity, founders pledge to give more equity to later employees so only a small handful are not the only ones to profit. Everyone takes a risk joining…

I know that "employees get screwed" is the hn conventional wisdom, but it's generally false. If a startup is huge success, there will be many wealthy employees. Companies like Google and Facebook created thousands of millionaires. Uber and Airbnb will likely do the same. Of course if the company exits for less than money raised, then yes, common will likely not be worth much, but that's the risk of startup equity.

Yeah but in your examples, the founders became multibillionaires. Quite a ratio there between founder and employee.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#82

Post by bicyclecard »

pb wrote: post #50
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #8

I understand giving to charity is great and all but what about employees 10, 35, 97? So someone works hard at a start-up but they weren't among the first dozen or so to join then they likely get next to nothing from an exit. So how about, instead of a pledge to give to charity, founders pledge to give more equity to later employees so only a small handful are not the only ones to profit. Everyone takes a risk joining…

I know that "employees get screwed" is the hn conventional wisdom, but it's generally false. If a startup is huge success, there will be many wealthy employees. Companies like Google and Facebook created thousands of millionaires. Uber and Airbnb will likely do the same. Of course if the company exits for less than money raised, then yes, common will likely not be worth much, but that's the risk of startup equity.

Yeah but in your examples, the founders became multibillionaires. Quite a ratio there between founder and employee.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#83

Post by bicyclecard »

pb wrote: post #50
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #8

I understand giving to charity is great and all but what about employees 10, 35, 97? So someone works hard at a start-up but they weren't among the first dozen or so to join then they likely get next to nothing from an exit. So how about, instead of a pledge to give to charity, founders pledge to give more equity to later employees so only a small handful are not the only ones to profit. Everyone takes a risk joining…

I know that "employees get screwed" is the hn conventional wisdom, but it's generally false. If a startup is huge success, there will be many wealthy employees. Companies like Google and Facebook created thousands of millionaires. Uber and Airbnb will likely do the same. Of course if the company exits for less than money raised, then yes, common will likely not be worth much, but that's the risk of startup equity.

Yeah but in your examples, the founders became multibillionaires. Quite a ratio there between founder and employee.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#84

Post by cyphar »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #66
imbenclifford wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like this is equivalent to saying that if a founder decides she will buy a house if she exits, that she is denying employees of equity. Have I missed the point?

I know others already hit on it but since you replied to me: I would say those are not equivalent. With buying a house on exit you're planning on taking your money and doing something personal with it. When you're giving it to charity it's money you didn't need . If you didn't need the money, why wouldn't it go to the first employees (or even later employees) in the form of equity since they helped build the company?…

> With buying a house on exit you're planning on taking your money and doing something personal with it. When you're giving it to charity it's money you didn't need.

And the founder could've easily continued to live in their parent's house. They don't need to buy a house either. And sometimes donating to charity is personal and necessary as well. Not everyone feels okay with swimming in giant piles of cash while other people need it more than them -- "other people" meaning charities. I don't work at a startup, but I pledge a significant portion of my salary towards many charities and free software projects. Why don't you do the same? It's not that I don't need my money (if you intend to invest your money then you technically always need more money), it's that they need money more than I do.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#85

Post by lifeisstillgood »

cperciva wrote: post #60
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would similarly like to encourage founders to build a ethos of "giving back to the community" in their day to day companies. Even if the start up does not set the world (and stock market) on fire, the accumulated talent and energy would be of immense use in hack-a-days, in food shelters and of course in open source projects and conferences We want your money tomorrow, of course, but just in case you don't make any,…

Right. And at Tarsnap I do exactly that -- but Tarsnap is designed to be profitable. For startups which lose money hand over fist, it may be hard to justify making such contributions until after they're acquired.

I am going to backtrack wildly here - I did not mean to imply your (very large) OSS contributions had not happened. I think your track record speaks for itself.

On reflection I was speaking from a worry that the majority of companies I have worked for did not / refused to allow OSS contributions, and that a lot of engineering talent was squandered on proprietary work of dubious value.

Fixing that seems like it would unleash enormous value across the economy / society.

As such startups are perhaps less relevant to the solution, but startups can be the sexy blueprints of the future, copied by others, so it might help.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#86

Post by loeg »

tptacek wrote: post #75
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's kind of disturbing to see (what I presume to be) a member of one of the best compensated demographics in one of the richest countries in the world suggest that while it's OK for a cashed-out founder to buy houses with their money (at least that's personal), before any of that money goes to a worthy charitable cause, other software developers should get dibs on it. > I feel like you could not have fully thought…

I don't think you're a monster; I meant what I said. You seem to be proposing not only that it's a better idea to give money to software developers than to charities, but that founders who give money to charities are somehow violating some norm or ethic --- after all, any dollar they donate to charity is a dollar that could have gone to a developer on their team. I totally believe that's not what you're saying, but I…

Maybe: pay your (startup) software developers enough to be able to donate to charity themselves.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#87

Post by hkmurakami »

SandersAK wrote: post #4

I think this is a neat idea but I wish they would explain this in a simple sentence on their site instead of all the mumbojumbo. Something like This is a Donor-Advised Fund that is completely free to participate in. Donor-Advised Funds are the best way to give when you have a major liquidity event because: Reason 1 Reason 2 Reason 3 Join a community of people who want to do the same. This is useful for you because: R…

Dovor Advised Funds recently came under fire for having an overall poor track record of fund disbursement.

I wonder what mechanisms (if any) will be in place to make sure disbursements are made in a timely manner. Otherwise this runs the risk of being branded as a "tax avoidance maneuver by ever greedy SV billionaires".

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#88

Post by cperciva »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #85
cperciva wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. And at Tarsnap I do exactly that -- but Tarsnap is designed to be profitable. For startups which lose money hand over fist, it may be hard to justify making such contributions until after they're acquired.

I am going to backtrack wildly here - I did not mean to imply your (very large) OSS contributions had not happened. I think your track record speaks for itself. On reflection I was speaking from a worry that the majority of companies I have worked for did not / refused to allow OSS contributions, and that a lot of engineering talent was squandered on proprietary work of dubious value. Fixing that seems like it would…

Don't worry, I think I understood what you meant. I was just offering a possible explanation of why some startups might be better positioned to contribute later rather than right now.

For example, I don't think I saw any code contributions from WhatsApp to FreeBSD, and I know Tarsnap donated more to the FreeBSD Foundation than WhatsApp did pre-acquisition -- but when they were acquired and Jan Koum suddenly had money available, he made the largest donation the Foundation ever received.

So, if you can contribute now, great; if not, well, keep doing what you're doing, and if you're lucky enough to have a big exit hopefully you'll remember us at that point.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#89

Post by _andromeda_ »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #8

I understand giving to charity is great and all but what about employees 10, 35, 97? So someone works hard at a start-up but they weren't among the first dozen or so to join then they likely get next to nothing from an exit. So how about, instead of a pledge to give to charity, founders pledge to give more equity to later employees so only a small handful are not the only ones to profit. Everyone takes a risk joining…

Beats me why Altman is steering the yc brand towards this socialism nonsense. First UBI,now this. Just build great companies and reward employees who make significant contributions and you'll have the eutopia you're so eager to create.

Re: YC and Founders Pledge

#90

Post by [deleted] »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #58
cperciva wrote: post #48

I'd like to encourage founders who are participating in this to consider directing at least some of their pledges to support open source software. I don't think there are any YC companies which would have existed if it hadn't been for a large amount of open source software; if you want to maximize the impact of your donations, helping the projects which build tools the next generation of startups will rely on is a pr…

I would similarly like to encourage founders to build a ethos of "giving back to the community" in their day to day companies. Even if the start up does not set the world (and stock market) on fire, the accumulated talent and energy would be of immense use in hack-a-days, in food shelters and of course in open source projects and conferences We want your money tomorrow, of course, but just in case you don't make any,…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN