251–260 of 278 posts
Of course, if the compensation is horrendously unfair, the top talent will not accept it.
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Agreed, I am 40+ and am a CTO at a startup which has great work/life balance. We pay approximately market (for a normal dev job, not FAANG), haven't had people do overtime in well over a year, are transparent about finances, and have practically zero politics. It is also possible for a startup to be "stable", especially if it's bootstrapped/profitable.
'have practically zero politics' tingles my bs-meter. How would you know how your employees feel about this? There is always politics. Of course not for the ones who cannot be promoted further, but for everyone else. My boss not acknowledging the existence of politics would be a red flag to me.
I’ve worked in places with nasty politics. It’s brutal and awful.
In a smaller place with a flatter org, you’re usually going to have less nastiness, for the simple reason that there aren’t any bullshit roles with organizational power. Bullshit attracts assholes.
When small companies suck, it’s usually because the owner is a jerk.
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> NSOs are ultimately worth maybe 10%-20% less than "equivalent" ISOs I'm at a company that gives NSOs. Can you explain what you mean when you say that NSOs are worth less than ISOs?
Obvious disclaimer: I'm not a tax specialist. You should not rely on tax advice found in an internet comment. I probably got some stuff wrong below. When you exercise an ISO, it is not considered regular taxable income. It is as if you legitimately purchased the stock on the market for that price. No tax is due until you sell. If you sell immediately then you pay regular income tax on the gain. But if you hold it for…
I would still recommend folks to properly understand what it is and how it is calculated so they can double check the numbers, but that really applies to pretty much every tax form.
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>I could be a cog in a giant corporate machine, or I can have a measurable impact where I work. I think that point can support working for either a big company or a small company depending on what type of impact you are looking for. I've worked for startups in the past and have had a huge impact on the startup but almost no impact on the outside world because the startups just weren't tackling very visible problems.…
> I think that point can support working for either a big company or a small company depending on what type of impact you are looking for. For a lot of people, "I want to have an impact where I work" is more about their own ego and sense of importance than about impact on other people's lives. This is not a value judgment, by the way - wanting to feel like more than just another faceless disposable drone is a valid d…
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> I think that point can support working for either a big company or a small company depending on what type of impact you are looking for. For a lot of people, "I want to have an impact where I work" is more about their own ego and sense of importance than about impact on other people's lives. This is not a value judgment, by the way - wanting to feel like more than just another faceless disposable drone is a valid d…
I'd argue that people conflate "having an impact" with "creating a product" rather than "having an impact" with having visible prestige. I used to think the former, but not after having experience interacting with people who want to be middle managers of middle managers. Those people want power and mostly don't care about impacting anything outside revenue increases that can be easily tied back to their name.
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Another thing that may be hard to understand for non-US citizens. For me, exercising options costs me just that, the option price + bank fees; I owe no tax. I have to pay full tax when & if I sell the shares. This seems like a much fairer taxation regime - I pay tax when I earn something - just having un-sellable shares didn't suddenly increase my wealth. With this, it actually makes sense to exercise options and sta…
One should exercise at the earliest possible convenience. If I'd exercised on day 1 when I joined a startup, I wouldn't have owed tax because I wasn't getting a discount, but a locked-in price. So when I exercised after the value increased, I then owed tax. I've seen it suggested that one should exercise on day 1. But that doesn't have to mean you pay for them immediately (after all, you don't get to keep them immedi…
I've seen too many people exercise stock options trying to minimize tax implications down the road, only to see them eventually leave the company for any number of reasons and they end up get heavily diluted to almost nothing in future rounds. All that money basically down the drain trying to chase long term capital gains vs regular income tax rates when the likelihood that they'll make anything is extremely low.
Everyone's risk posture is different, but considering how few startups are actually successful, I would argue it's better to just assume the options are worthless and just deal with the regular income tax situation if you get lucky enough to be around during an IPO or acquisition.
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> ... now I stand I make low 7 figures from the equity on this last company (publicly traded now). Isn't that a "never need to work again" situation though? eg, you've effectively freed up your future to put time into whatever you want?
3% is a pretty good rule of thumb for perpetual withdrawal rate. If it's say $1M after taxes, that means $30k/yr. This is enough to retire on but only if you're willing to make lifestyle changes. Probably not that hard to do if you're 30 and single and renting, but married with kids and a mortgage it's a tough sell. (Obviously as your raise the definition of "low 7 figures" this can change dramatically)
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> ... now I stand I make low 7 figures from the equity on this last company (publicly traded now). Isn't that a "never need to work again" situation though? eg, you've effectively freed up your future to put time into whatever you want?
Low 7 figures to me would be between $1,000,000 and $3,000,000. I don't think that I would call that "never need to work again" money. It's between 10 and 30 years of my salary. A good lump sum to stash in the retirement fund. Maybe retire at 55 instead of 65, but definitely not "never need to work again" money.
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I agree with this mentality. I was at a FAANG company as well, and some of the projects I worked on had a small impact on the company but a huge impact on a certain group. 4% of a billion users is the total population of Canada. Now that I'm at a startup, I'm making a huge impact on the startup, but it's having very little impact on the outside world and the industry. I guess the hope is that one day the startup will…
It's an interesting choice. Which do you prefer? I'd prefer having an impact on the company versus an impact on a large number of users, because I would experience the impact on the company every day, but at the big company, the feeling of satisfaction from running into random people who have used what I made would still be somewhat infrequent.
Online forums, discussion groups etc. can makes them very frequent, global, profound and in many cases very visible to your friends & families - who otherwise would not know what you are working at the small startup.
Well, employees are not investors, even if the author is implying that they should be the same, or should be treated the same. Employment contracts are at-will, nobody is forced to agree to compensation. Of course, if the compensation is horrendously unfair, the top talent will not accept it.
What is the point you are making here, other than stating the obvious? It's the same for investment, what am I missing?