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Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

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Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#61

Post by deanmoriarty »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #31
seibelj wrote: post #3

Valid reasons to work for a startup: - You are a cofounder. - You have little experience and you are using this to break into the industry, and get experience on many different technologies ("wear many hats"). - They are working on a very specific problem or using a specific technology that you strongly desire to work on and it's difficult to do it anywhere else. - You want to work a certain way (remote, on the beach…

"Making a lot of money in salary." I think a bit of perspective is in order. When the bar for comparison is technical principles at FAANG, yes. If you want to own a house, have paid-for cars, put your kid through school, put away savings, and otherwise be completely comfortable then you can do just fine. That is "wealthy" for a lot of people in this country. I know someone that delivered food to restaurants. He woke…

Not in the Bay Area, where a lot of interesting jobs are (startup or not).

In order to afford those things there, you need to laugh at startup offers and go work for a big company.

Seriously, I would love a world in which every single damn engineer shows their middle finger at a startup trying to hire them unless they pay market rate AND offer the written possibility to sell their shares every year or so, at the current company valuation.

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#63

Post by rooam-dev »

swish_bob wrote: post #53
rooam-dev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a start-up? How do you manage live/work balance? Are there any on-call duties? Thanks in advance.

I've worked at a startup that mandated no developers worked outside core hours (unless responding to an on-call issue, we all took turns on call). It worked fine. The founders were fairly enlightened people, and well aware that we were in this for the long haul - success would take time and nobody could work long hours without the quality of the work suffering. This wasn't the case for all staff, mind. There were def…

Thanks, there is hope then! Something similar I see at my current work place. I always try to send the message it's a marathon and not a constant sprint.

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#64

Post by l2c1928 »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #48
l2c1928 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a myth that you can't realize gains if a company doesn't IPO...I've already sold some shares in a tender offer. There is an active secondary market for shares if I chose to sell more. Not sure what your point is about $3MM over 10 years. Why would you divide it over anything other than the number of years you actually worked at the company? You've assumed I was a senior engineering hire. I was in a junior non…

Early selling for employees is exceedingly rare and also often on bad terms, this was mentioned in the OP article. Again, it’s lucky that you were able to, but is such a wildly unlikely outcome that functionally everyone else has to ignore that aspect of your story. To boot, being able to sell in a secondary market transaction only after about 3 years is even more ridiculously rare (to the point that it makes me ques…

I never said how many years ago I joined...by a "few years" I meant 5. I said I sold some shares via a tender offer, which are company sponsored, and last year was the first time I was offered that opportunity. Companies can't block you from selling on a secondary market unless you've specifically agreed to that as part of the initial grant. It's far more common that they have the "right of first refusal" clause which means they get the chance to buy back your shares before selling to a third party.

I don't think there's anything particularly special about my situation other than I was fortunate to join a now unicorn early on.

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#65

Post by brootstrap »

deanmoriarty wrote: post #39
rooam-dev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a start-up? How do you manage live/work balance? Are there any on-call duties? Thanks in advance.

In my very personal experience, many times startups are not full of the brightest engineers, especially if they are based in a major tech hub such as the Bay Area: most talented engineers these days, if location is not an issue, first try a shot at FAANG or similarly big companies where they can experience problems at massive scale and very high compensation. Hence, many folks who end up accepting to work at a startu…

Interesting... i'm in a similar space where I found a decent startup, grinded for a year or two... and have pretty much been riding a gravy train ever since. In the midwest, making 100k in my late 20s and going full time remote soon. we got bought up by some corporate shmos as well so got a pretty penny in stock options

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#66

Post by [deleted] »

rooam-dev wrote: post #51
dleslie wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a startup, yes. I work eight hours a day on average, and being that we have staff on most continents we don't really have a need to be on call. That said, I've had a handful of 3am emergencies over the course of the last few years. I work in my garage; so I have no commute, and I no longer lose over two hours a day to commuting. That's meant I contribute far less to open source, which I did while on transit. How…

Thank you for your reply. This gives me more food for thought. I am lead engineer at a start-up and my goal is to create a good work environment for our current and future devs. #1 enemy is the on-call, which should be resolved with customer support + some automation.

[deleted]

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#67

Post by rooam-dev »

dleslie wrote: post #37
rooam-dev wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a start-up? How do you manage live/work balance? Are there any on-call duties? Thanks in advance.

It's a startup, yes. I work eight hours a day on average, and being that we have staff on most continents we don't really have a need to be on call. That said, I've had a handful of 3am emergencies over the course of the last few years. I work in my garage; so I have no commute, and I no longer lose over two hours a day to commuting. That's meant I contribute far less to open source, which I did while on transit. How…

One more question if you don't mind.

What is your vacation policy? Fixed amount + required to take or unlimited + take what you need? I am not a big fan of the latter, but not sure how it works for others.

Thanks.

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#68

Post by rooam-dev »

dleslie wrote: post #59
rooam-dev wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your reply. This gives me more food for thought. I am lead engineer at a start-up and my goal is to create a good work environment for our current and future devs. #1 enemy is the on-call, which should be resolved with customer support + some automation.

FWIW, we're a reasonably successful social application that's _heavy_ on real time networking; so there's always a large number of users active and our services are generally humming along at high throughput. Lots of automated tests. A good community team. Code reviews. A _rigid_ feature-branch-and-test process. A _rigid_ closed beta->open beta->release process. And we still have bugs. But things don't catch fire oft…

Sounds like what we want to achieve. Good to know it works for others.

Re: Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

#70

Post by conanbatt »

btilly wrote: post #19

To his suggestions, I have another. Offer internal Dutch auctions on a regular basis to provide an opportunity for investors/the company/etc to buy stock from employees at a reasonable price. This makes the value of the company, from the point of view of the employee, not "funny money" but something very tangible. With an opportunity to cash out long before it is public.

The easiest solution is that startup employees should be able to sell their shares in the open market, as they please.

Then all the problems go away.

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