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Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

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Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#21

Post by haswell »

zeveb wrote: post #7
owenversteeg wrote: post #5

Anyone who just cares about the numbers: he was given options of 45,000 shares, of which 15,000 had vested. These 15,000, or 0.0833% of the company, were available to him at $0.27/share, or $4,050 total. So he had the opportunity to buy 0.0833% of the company at a $4.8MM valuation. Given that they recently raised $20MM at an undefined valuation it really says something that he chose not to exercise the options. I rea…

> Damn, that email from the CEO about his private Twitter. That's completely out of line. It regarded his professional work on GitLab: https://twitter.com/suprnova32/status/720396175954698240 I think it's completely appropriate that he link instead to GitLab for such a thing, and I think it's remarkable that he didn't think the same. This isn't like the ad world, where if your customer is Coke you can't be seen drink…

Not commenting on whether or not this was "right/wrong", but it's worth noting that the GitHub contributor page is showing something different than the GitLab contributor page (adds vs. commits). If adds is what he wanted to show, GitHub may have been the only place to show that.

It's also worth noting that if you search Google for GitLab source code, GitHub is the first thing that comes up. To an uninformed outsider, it looks like GitHub is where GitLab development happens.

It may not have been the best thing to do, but I don't think this tweet "completely undermines the GitLab position".

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#23

Post by bofia »

arjie wrote: post #17
habitue wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually companies have a clause where they have the first right to buy the stock options back before you offer them for sale to anyone else. Employee stock options are sort of intended to be NODROP, and if they want to make shares available on like second market, they need to create a pool of shares specifically for that.

And when they exercise that right, they'd be able to buy them back at the strike price?

No, they would buy it back at the price that the buyer had offered. In your example, $10000 for the 15000 units.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#24

Post by gkoberger »

As someone who knows the CEO of GitLab, I can say nothing but amazing things about him. (Even reading through this article, you'll find nothing in it that casts a negative light on the CEO.)

I'm sure there's a ton left out, and this seems like a bitter hit piece rather than a well-thought-out, balanced critique of a company.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#25

Post by bofia »

arjie wrote: post #6

This presents a question I've had for a while. Suppose I want a small number of units (say the 15000 he has here) in a company that's pre-IPO, is there a standardized agreement for me to buy it from him? While his past employer probably has right of first refusal on the units, wouldn't he still come out ahead if I wanted to pay him, say, $10000 for the 15000 units? Could they have legally pre-emptively blocked the sa…

Disclosure: I work at EquityZen, a marketplace for pre-IPO shares

Every company has different transfer restrictions on their shares/options. Yes they could legally block the sale if their by-laws or the share grant agreement allows it. We have somewhat standardized agreements for transferring shares at EquityZen, and we get company approval for all deals.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#26

Post by calcsam »

The GitLab exec team is probably pretty happy to be reading this blog post. Because Patricio isn't exercising his stock options they will return to the option pool, where they are available for re-allocation to new hires.

0.1% of a Series B company is the entire four-year grant for a new engineer, or several sales / operations folks.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#28

Post by danpalmer »

gkoberger wrote: post #24

As someone who knows the CEO of GitLab, I can say nothing but amazing things about him. (Even reading through this article, you'll find nothing in it that casts a negative light on the CEO.) I'm sure there's a ton left out, and this seems like a bitter hit piece rather than a well-thought-out, balanced critique of a company.

> Even reading through this article, you'll find nothing in it that casts a negative light on the CEO.

I definitely got a negative light about the CEO from this, and that doesn't include the poor culture which is arguably the CEO's responsibility.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#29

Post by elastic_church »

Give them to ESO fund so someone can take the risk to make a buck off of the options!

Its a good deal and nobody cares about your emotions. (ESO fund just fronts the capital for you to buy the shares you are entitled to, and makes a separate contract entitling them to some profits, risk free for you)

Silly to spend that much of your life just to weigh $4000 or so and write a blog post the circumstances leading up to that decision, when there's infrastructure to remove the decision making process out of it.

Re: Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options

#30

Post by sh_throwaway »

I feel for this guy. I was an extremely early employee at a startup, and when I left I was faced with the decision of whether or not to buy exercise my stock options. Eventually I declined to exercise them.

Telling your friends that you don't value the thing you've all been pouring your life into is tough. It feels like you're insulting them. Esp when there's still money in the bank and the investors don't know what you know about the company. But I saw the writing on the wall. The ship was sinking and I couldn't get them to plug the leak.

Ultimately I decided that I'd rather give up my lottery ticket and be happy. Turned out I ended up happy and much better off financially and emotionally. As always there's a relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1768/

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