Ask HN: How much did you make from your startup's IPO?

Post by jeffshek » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 8:18 AM UTC

luckystartup wrote: post #7

I was one of the first 5 employees at a YC unicorn. They haven't had an IPO yet, but it's getting closer. My original offer was for 0.5% of the company, but I didn't vest all of my shares before leaving. The shares are currently worth about $1.5M, and I'm hoping that they will be worth about $3-5M after the IPO and lockup period. My salary was $120K and I relocated to SF from a different country, so I don't really fe…

Post by luckystartup » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 9:09 AM UTC

jeffshek wrote: post #11

luckystartup wrote: post #7

I was one of the first 5 employees at a YC unicorn. They haven't had an IPO yet, but it's getting closer. My original offer was for 0.5% of the company, but I didn't vest all of my shares before leaving. The shares are currently worth about $1.5M, and I'm hoping that they will be worth about $3-5M after the IPO and lockup period. My salary was $120K and I relocated to SF from a different country, so I don't really fe…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYt5yuiGk9E&feature=youtu.be... Minor frustration: Someone in the <5 employee count deserves more equity. Yes that % is pretty common, but I think that's wrong.

Post by mm202018 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:38 PM UTC

jzl wrote: post #10

mm202018 wrote: post #6

I worked at Uber starting in 2015 for 2 years. Not going to give numbers and I have not been following secondary markets but the company was already valued at $70b or so back then and I don’t think there’s been meaningful movement in the valuation since then. Point is people who joined even 4 years ago aren’t exactly making a huge multiple of their initial grant. Lyft’s IPO bodes well though for Uber stock. We’ll see…

Good point, but properly priced ISOs should have a discount of about 2/3rd the value of the preferred stock (as determined by the previous Series-* funding round) at the time of grant. So even if the valuation hasn't changed, most peoples' options should still mint a pretty penny if they were priced according to typical practice. I don't know anything about Uber. For reference, "What’s a Fair 409A Discount?": https:/…

Post by tmp192489 » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 12:56 PM UTC

baccredited wrote: post #14

I was around employee 100. Had options that were worth about 1.5 million at the peak, then the internet bubble popped and by the time I was fully vested and able to sell it was maybe 1/10th that--$150K or so. In hindsight, I could have shorted the stock at the peak to lock in the price of the unvested shares. The whole experience makes me think most engineers should value options at basically zero. Save an aggressive…

Post by baccredited » Mon, Apr 01, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

technofiend wrote: post #18

baccredited wrote: post #14

I was around employee 100. Had options that were worth about 1.5 million at the peak, then the internet bubble popped and by the time I was fully vested and able to sell it was maybe 1/10th that--$150K or so. In hindsight, I could have shorted the stock at the peak to lock in the price of the unvested shares. The whole experience makes me think most engineers should value options at basically zero. Save an aggressive…

Not an IPO but I was hired by a company that was supposed to extend me an offer including stock options, unfortunately there was miscommunication about shares vs options, netting me 1/100th of what I expected. I was so angry I seriously considered taking a short position against the original amount of stock I was promised, but in the end it just didn't feel right to bet against my employer. A year later and their sto…