This thread is depressing I´m not even earning 1k/month here in Spain.
Move to the netherlands if your english is good. You can make at least 50k/year here
Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
81–90 of 175 posts
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I got an offer from Netflix for 450k cash and another offer from FB for 210k cash with 600k equity over 4 years, a few years ago. Considering how well those stocks did after such offers were made to me, and how frugal I am (avid minimalist spending Also, the 1M from the startup wasn’t net, but gross (taxed at long term capital gain luckily).
> 210k cash with 600k equity over 4 years Could you please explain how does this work? Is it a one-time payment of 600K spread over 4 years? And afterwards you just end up with 210K base (or maybe a small increase) for the following years, with no additional bonuses/etc?
You get refreshers so, no, it's not just base once your initial grant runs out. In a normal case, especially early in your career, the refreshers are larger than the initial grant as you get promotions and raises.
This is not necessarily true if you've plateaued and is not necessarily true if your realized comp greatly exceeds your target comp. If your target comp is $500k per year but you're realizing $1000k per year due to stock growth then your refreshers will reflect the $500k rather than the $1000k.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#83I was employee #1. It sold to google. All employee options were wiped out.
What was your Google offer?
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#84Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#85First startup, I traded nearly all of my salary over four years for stock options: $0 Second startup, I was told I'd get 5% of the company (no contract though). I quit after a year without pushing the topic: $0 Third job was not a startup, but it was a fairly small company, and I've made nearly two million in tax deferred accounts having made a healthy salary the entire time. I'm retiring this year. I learned a lot o…
"Third job was not a startup, but it was a fairly small company, and I've made nearly two million in tax deferred accounts" I would love to know how. Am I just stupid? How am I missing these opportunities? Someone above posted that 4 years at FAANG would net you $1,000,000 savings. And you're saying that a "fairly small" company netted you $2,000,000 savings? I am failing at life, apparently.
99% of times success or failure is just a state of mind, so it’s pretty much your choice to decide.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#86CTO on founding team. Started out with 10% equity. Co. is now 6 years old. After a merger (diluted by 40%), $10m investment (diluted more), $4m strategic investment (diluted more), then investors taking money off the table first for an exit event - I stand to make $100k if we sell at $20m and $600k if we sell at $40m (currently valued at $20mish). That's pre tax.
That's underwhelming.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#87I was employee #1. It sold to google. All employee options were wiped out.
It sounds like the Founders had to have made some poor/greedy decisions if even employee #1 didn't see anything.
As someone who has been on the purchasing side of one of these transactions, that's not really the case.
What usually happens is, say the company has received $x million in funding. Everyone is plugging away working hard, but runway starts to run short and the product isn't getting the traction originally anticipated. At that point it looks obvious the company will go bankrupt relatively soon, so the investors push for a sale to try to recoup some of the their money. Often times there is value in the team and perhaps industry knowledge to the acquiring company, but the tech itself is often worthless, so the sales price is below the $x million capital raised and only holders of preferred shares get anything.
Note that founders rarely own preferred shares. They have common stock just like employees, so they are usually wiped out, too, in cases like this.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#88Made 1 million on a company exit of about 100 million as technical co-founder. Started with 15% but got diluted to 1% after several rounds of funding including down rounds.
> Started with 15% but got diluted to 1% after several rounds of funding including down rounds. haha WOW oh my god, and the software engineers getting a fraction of a fraction of a percent and being "reassured" that its a generous offer! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6IQ_FOCE6I
While I don't disagree with your comment much (if the technical cofounder was diluted down to 1%, guessing pretty much all employees received well under $100k), it's weird that you linked to that "tech bubble" video from 2007. If anything, Peter Thiel was exactly right, and he understood that winner-take-all tech leaders would become insanely valuable. That video is arguing 2007 Facebook was a bubble at a $15 billion valuation. It's worth $470 billion today.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#89Was young and stupid. Joined a startup (Kno formely Kakai) as #12 employee. Made $0. Would have been negative amount if I hadn't ripped up my early exercise papers before leaving. Company took O($xxxM) and due to mismanagement & nepotism sold for O($xM). Nobody made any money. Some lost a lot.
Re: Ask HN: How much did you, as an employee, make when your startup exited?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
Curious why you have 1,000 shared remaining? Are you still employed there? Also, what was the tax bill on the $14k and $1.1M in terms of percentage? Was it long term capital gains 15% fixed?
I am no longer employed there. I hold them mostly for nostalgic purposes. I sold all of my shares because it seemed foolish to have 100% of my net worth in one company. Holding 1000 shares feels okay. Tax bill was ~0 on the $14K and my marginal tax rate on half (I’m Canadian)
Wise move. Better to sell if off, to avoid "all eggs in one basket" and have the basket fall.
20% earned in a probability friendly way, is much better than 100% in a low probability way (as very high chances would have been of it nearing 0%)