Options vs. Cash

> I started off once thinking "yay, X% means I get X% of the company!" and then I found out the shares can be diluted. Then I learned "non-dillutable".

Then I learned about vesting periods, windows for exercising options, and a whole slew of financial terms and devices; each one seemed to come with its own unique "gotcha" that, if you didn't know about, would cost you nearly everything.

Everyone I talk to about these always says "well, don't do that one thing, or if you do that one thing be sure you do it in this way and you're set". The cumulative knowledge you need becomes pretty high pretty quickly though, and the chances of me doing the right legal and financial incantation at the right moment becomes lower.

Nowadays I go with cash. I don't get 'golden handcuffs' that hold me to a job I don't like because it might pay off later. I can calculate the expected value and risks with cash without tons of research. I know my legal recourses if I get screwed out of cash.

You'll see that it was right all along.

Yes, I agree that we all go through an early period of ignorance and then we get more financially savvy as we learn more information. We don't know what we don't know.

However, when OP writes, "then I learned "non-dillutable", he/she is misinforming people with expectations that employees can get fixed-percentage ownership that stays at that fixed amount through subsequent investment rounds. The implication is that employees who didn't get such "non-dilutable shares" are getting screwed. This is not the case.[1] The normal situation is for _all_ ownership to dilute. It's not a nefarious trick on the employees.

If people think they are more "financially sophisticated" with knowledge of "no dilution" shares, they are wrong. Instead, if candidates try to negotiate "non-dilutable shares" with a founder as a condition of employment, they will look like clueless idiots. (Reading about mythical "non-dilutable employee shares" on HN made them dumber, not smarter.)

The expected mathematical mechanism for employees to get richer is for the share price to increase instead of the ownership % not to dilute.

[1] "Non-dilutable stock is impractical and unfair, and in some cases impossible.[...]" : https://www.quora.com/I-was-offered-non-dilutable-equity-by-...

If I want to play the lottery, then I'll choose to do it with small bills on a lark. Not gamble with a substantial portion of my regular income.

If I can't clearly evaluate the total compensation package I'm getting, I will assume you are trying to screw me, and I'll probably walk away because of what that says about your management and culture.

In my opinion, the value of the equity you're offering me is zero until proven otherwise. And it's not my job to prove otherwise. It's yours. Your exciting workplace, free beer, ping-pong tables, and gluten-free vegan breakfast/lunch options are all as meaningless as your equity is.

The same thing goes for cutting-edge technologies (resume-driven development), and at this point, I'm starting to feel the same way about religious devotion to Agile.

All 3 of those things are red flags to me when I see them talked about in job postings. At the risk of sounding like I was born in the 70s (I was), I'd like to think that it's still possible to find a job in this field where you pay me a decent salary for good, solid work, and then you get the fuck out of my way so that I can do it.

In fact, I know these jobs are everywhere. They aren't sexy, they don't get talked about in the press, and they are usually not primarily technology companies. They are in-house teams where the client is the company, and the product is anything technology can improve so that the company can function better.

You're not going to get rich overnight. But many of these jobs offer a lot of autonomy and flexibility (within reason) to explore new things at a reasonable pace, a good quality of life, a decent wage, and a chance at retirement at an okay time.

I know this is Hacker News and the audience is mainly geared towards exciting new startups, but I want to give a shout out to the thousands of companies in the U.S. who don't try to cloud your head with delusions of getting rich quickly, don't give a shit about the latest js framework, don't bog you down with daily rituals, and just let you focus on solving problems with solid solutions and respectable code.

Perhaps I'm very much in the minority here, but I'm glad to have a place at a company that does what I think is meaningful and positive work in the world, pays me a solid 6 figures, and mostly lets our team do what we think is best, so long as it accomplishes the things we promise to deliver. Equity was never talked about. There was no discussion of perks of any kind. They told me what their problems were and interviewed me to see if I could help fix them. Then they told me what I would be paid and what the benefits are. They don't need to worry about me leaving for something hotter or sexier or more exciting. The only thing that would make me leave is if there were some drastic change in management that suddenly made my life miserable.

But that says a lot more about you than it does about them. Everyone is different and judging from this thread, many believe equity is bullshit for reasons unrelated to their work ethic or team spiritedness.