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At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

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Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#151

Post by skim_milk »

rolltiide wrote: post #135
skim_milk wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at a startup company for a year in the Midwest that was in the exact same situation, growing 50% YOY with only a little pocket change for speed funding all owner by the founders. The founders had the same exact idea, founders own 100%, employees own nothing, and they wanted to tell everyone how awesome they were because of it. Key difference was that apparently our city's chamber of commerce that had a lot o…

okay, Omaha, define "paid well" and "paid well without golden handcuffs". and for the coastal record, "cost of living" means nothing to me when federal thresholds like achieving accredited investor status don't factor that in at all. I'll figure out how to stash away enough dollars getting paid a lot of dollars in a high cost of living area.

Exactly! We have a nation state budget for branding and marketing but nothing on business growth and we still can't write a statement about no employee ownership without coming across super condescending.

Hey, I see your Cost Of Living jab and raise you $500/mo rent on 6 figures. I bet your farmers markets don't even have free corn. Checkmate, athiests.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#152

Post by jedberg »

underwater wrote: post #146
chucksmash wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps a working partner and a willingness to get by on one income. Know a couple who did this in NYC for a couple of years on non-dev salaries and the trade-off definitely opened doors for them.

How is this any different from taking your entire paycheck and dumping it into a single stock each month? It's effectively a gamble, and often employees are too emotionally invested to make a rational financial investment of that scale.

It was a gamble, but we had a lot of leverage because we got major discounts with pre-tax money.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#153

Post by jedberg »

hnbroseph wrote: post #96
jedberg wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not exactly how it works. They give you a total comp number, and then you choose the cash/equity ratio yourself, which you can change each year. A lot of people chose the all cash option because they didn't understand there equity option, so they changed it to give everyone a little bit of equity regardless, but you can still opt to get extra equity in lieu of cash, and change that election every year. I think…

> One guy chose 100% equity, and is now retired. being able to choose 100% equity would suggest a particular level of financial independence before even starting. how long did they work without a salary? did they regularly sell equity as a salary-replacement?

He lived off selling his Google stock, where he worked before Netflix. :)

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#154

Post by bit_4l »

throaway5983 wrote: post #142
tschwimmer wrote: post #12

A lot of Sillicon Valley startup fundraising ends up resembling an iterated prisoner's dilemma. Most startups fail and it's likely that you might have to work with people a few times before you get it right. The [generally] dominant strategy for Iterated Prisoner's dilemma is tit for tat[0], and consequently you see a lot of people cooperating when when it might be more lucrative to defect is because they know that t…

You're assuming that this was a rational, conscious decision on his part. I've had some dealings with him that would lead me to conclude that this is just his personal inclination. He threatened me & my company over a wholly imagined transgression (and ceased completely when our attorney asked for documentation). Believe me or not, the main point is that working backwards from behavior to the thought process that led…

Off topic but what an username!

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#155

Post by xivzgrev »

Rationally, Sounds like he played the game and won. He didn’t make any false promises (but I’m sure didn’t correct anyone either).

Values wise, to me sounds like a bit of a dick, esp with the early employees. Good for him, he made a billion dollars. But he knowingly took advantage of people who chose to invest years of their life with him. Not cool. He doesn’t have to keep being a dick either - just give employees a generous bonus (like 1x annual salary) when they reach x years if they did well and a thank you, not that hard. That’s all people want.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#156

Post by robocat »

Tehchops wrote: post #150
robocat wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case the investors have not been screwed because they are sophisticated enough to know the possible outcomes - that's just business. I suspect the VC team would say "well played that man".

Do you really want to burn a bridge with a16z/AH in the tech industry? They may say "well played" in so many words, in public. Privately? They may be marshaling their bottomless war chest to unmake you.

He openly states he has no trouble with interest from investors: https://www.toptal.com/investors

And I can't see why his existing investors wouldn't be interested - although they would perhaps take more care with the terms.

His ethics don't seem to be weird, compared against stories about some other founders.

I can't see why you make predictions about how he should act or how VCs would act (what's your expertise?)

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#157

Post by rolltiide »

skim_milk wrote: post #151
rolltiide wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

okay, Omaha, define "paid well" and "paid well without golden handcuffs". and for the coastal record, "cost of living" means nothing to me when federal thresholds like achieving accredited investor status don't factor that in at all. I'll figure out how to stash away enough dollars getting paid a lot of dollars in a high cost of living area.

Exactly! We have a nation state budget for branding and marketing but nothing on business growth and we still can't write a statement about no employee ownership without coming across super condescending. Hey, I see your Cost Of Living jab and raise you $500/mo rent on 6 figures. I bet your farmers markets don't even have free corn. Checkmate, athiests.

You're a good sport.

I was mainly trying to predict and counteract a cost of living rebuttal.

I need to make $200,000+ per year for 2+ years, OR have $1 million in assets not including my house, just to be able to attempt joining the capital class in a private equity homerun. Otherwise I'm stuck with shitty common stock options (except where you live), public markets and bitcoin. Cost of living reduction means nothing to this reality. Only coastal companies are going to pay coastal employees this much without hemming and hawing and making you jump through a bunch of hoops to prove you are so exceptional.

Places aren't going to prevent the brain drain from anyone that understands that. All they do is get selective evolution of people who are stuck due to chronic problem (financial, health, likely both over time) of their own or their loved ones.

> $500/mo rent on 6 figures

thats pretty good, I try not to think about it

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#160

Post by heavenlyblue »

klipt wrote: post #133
tschwimmer wrote: post #12

A lot of Sillicon Valley startup fundraising ends up resembling an iterated prisoner's dilemma. Most startups fail and it's likely that you might have to work with people a few times before you get it right. The [generally] dominant strategy for Iterated Prisoner's dilemma is tit for tat[0], and consequently you see a lot of people cooperating when when it might be more lucrative to defect is because they know that t…

Also this behavior might work in the US, but if you screwed over a bunch of rich and powerful people in say, Russia, you'd probably end up having an "accident", changing the leadership of your company to someone more favorable to said rich and powerful.

I think there's also a good "death bed" test.

If your actions lead to you dying alone and everyone who you knew remember you as "that guy not worth remembering" - then you did bad for yourself.

You could say it's a more democratic version of the Russian "methods".

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