I don't understand what people expect in this kind of situation. The company was bought for around the amount of money that they took in investment, or less. Why would the employees get anything? If preference didn't exist, and I could take $10M in investment at $100M in valuation, and then the next day liquidate the company, return $1M, and keep $9M, obviously that would just mean that nobody would invest in startup…
Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
21–30 of 93 posts
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#22I don't understand what people expect in this kind of situation. The company was bought for around the amount of money that they took in investment, or less. Why would the employees get anything? If preference didn't exist, and I could take $10M in investment at $100M in valuation, and then the next day liquidate the company, return $1M, and keep $9M, obviously that would just mean that nobody would invest in startup…
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#23Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is founders won regardless of which side the coin landed on and the employees got screwed. I hope stories like this continue to break, and potential startup employees internalize the economic reality of working at a startup.
>potential startup employees internalize the economic reality of working at a startup. Treat your salary as your total income and equity as a lottery ticket?
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#25This really makes me feel for the employees and extremely distrustful of stock-option focused payouts.
Right now employees are offered stock options at arbitrary fractions of a percent, and forced to put a smile on their face because of the "generous offer" "bigger than others" that you got. And not everyone gets options, and not every industry gives routinely gives you ANY exposure to the success of the company. SO SMILE AND DON'T COMPLAIN. But the employee has no transparency into:
The liquidation preferences of existing shareholders
The valuation of the company per round, if the company decided not to brag about it
How that relates to the strike price of the option
What the option pool even looks like, dilution necessary to support it if at all
and of course, has to consider coming up with the actual money to purchase their exposure to the company, even without any of this transparency
If you issue the right or interest in a security to employees, they should have transparency. Delaware can do that.
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think that's the right way to think about it. Everyone got "screwed" on equity, including the founders. Separately Amazon decided to set up packages for employees they thought were to valuable to lose. If an early employee was valuable enough they were probably included in the 10 who received it.
I am so confused, were the owners just idiots about judging the value of the sale? There is no reason that all the stockholders should have voted to approve this sale unless they were going to walk away with something to pad their pockets so... did some majority shareholder sell out to amazon and get some separate remuneration? I feel like that should definitely be illegal. Edit: Oh, so the founders assumed they'd be…
Being poor is having no idea what that reality might seem like.
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#27I don't understand what people expect in this kind of situation. The company was bought for around the amount of money that they took in investment, or less. Why would the employees get anything? If preference didn't exist, and I could take $10M in investment at $100M in valuation, and then the next day liquidate the company, return $1M, and keep $9M, obviously that would just mean that nobody would invest in startup…
In some sense it would be more "honest" if the company was completely wound down and then the top 10 employees got hired by Amazon or something like that. But yeah, the result would be similar.
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#28I mean I joined a unicorn as a very employee and barely netted $1.3m. I’m not complaining, but there are far more certain ways to make that amount of money.
Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#29Re: Amazon bought Eero for $97M and employees still got screwed
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
>potential startup employees internalize the economic reality of working at a startup. Treat your salary as your total income and equity as a lottery ticket?
Nailed it. Also, loyalty only to yourself. You are a mercenary, seeking the highest total comp you can, ready to move jobs on a whim.
That way we could exercise our options as they vest, instead of holding out until an event to get some liquidity. It keeps people trapped.