How about, company was acquired by public company, employees were convinced to transition options into a promissory note that would eventually convert to more stock with more value, company folds, employees get sued for value of promissory notes? They tried to sue me for $113,000. We settled for $500 in lawyers fees. Never trust anyone in your company when it comes to this stuff, always get outside legal advise. I've been a millionaire on paper 3 times now?
Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
111–120 of 191 posts
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#112First employee hired at a startup. Paid for my options before leaving the company. Six months later the company was acquihired by Google. Three months after that I was given paperwork informing me that those shares are now worth exactly $0.00/each. Founders made out well enough from the deal to pick up high-end luxury sports cars though, which is the important part of an exit, right?
A comment below tickled my interest and I did some quick googling. From the information available on the web, it looks like your comment makes what happened look much worse than the reality. So I just want to point out to others that this is one side of the story and it lacks a lot of details to draw any conclusion and ask for the names of the "guilty". edit: since I'm getting some downvotes, let me expand a bit: it…
I did not in any way expect this to be a serious windfall for me. I also didn't mean to imply that this was a windfall for investors (who were merely reimbursed), or anyone but founders (albeit a small one for them).
Also, while IANAL, that paperwork implied that the company was purchased by Google (at least technically), contrary to what Techcrunch said. Part of my reasoning for not wanting to name the company and founders was this exact reason: it's hard to get a full and complete picture of a complex situation from just one person through a couple sentences.
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#113Proud non-profit hacker.
From the stories people are sharing here, it sounds like a lot of startups are "non-profits". ;)
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, how much do you think shares in a bankrupt company should be worth? If there's not enough money to go around, someone is going to get left with the short stick.
I think his point wasn't that someone getting the short stick was illegal, but rather that shares were bought from me without my direct consent.
Company boards can do this from time to time in takeover situations.
Consider: Berkshire-Hathaway bought the entirety of Burlington Northern Santa Fe for a fixed price, negotiated with the BNSF board. They bought it outright and did a merger. They didn't go to each individual shareholder and ask permission. Many shareholders probably weren't even paying attention enough to check in their portfolio.
The alternative is that mergers are impossible and you're stuck with having a 95%-owned subsidiary with its own corporate structure and all the overhead that entails.
(Of course this is prone to abuse. There are laws to protect minority shareholders' rights.)
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#115Is this before or after taxes? In my case, the difference between 60% of $0 and the full $0 is drastically different.
Umm... I don't get it. Care to explain?
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you mean do startups allow employees to forward exercise options and file for 83b? If yes, I'm interested in knowing that too.
Yeah. I had one like that but have really never heard of it happening anywhere else.
May be this deserves to be a separate question on HN :)
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#117You'd have to be pretty dumb to be an employee at a startup because of the money: bad hours, lots of risk, bad pay and lots of personal confrontation.
By those standards, you'd have to be even dumber to be a founder: bad hours, lots of risk, bad pay and lots of stress. Most good founders were employees at hot startups, where they learned what to do and joined 'networks of success.'
Less than "most" good founders were employees at hot startups. I base this on a good deal of data.
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
It's my opinion. Working at a startup, you're underpaid and overworked for very little financial benefit.
Obviously, that's true of some startups, but very wrong in others.
Working at Weebly, you have similar hours to BigCo (although you'll be 10x more productive), paid market rate (or slightly above), and receive your fair share of the outcome.
You also get to work with a fun group of people who are obsessed with being productive, and not much else. Maybe we're the exception, but we don't care if you're a 9-5 type of person, if you're very productive during those hours.
Working at a startup doesn't have to be shit, just because some startups are.
Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#119Re: Poll: How much did you earn from your stock options during exit?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Max, are you trolling here? This kinda smells like trolling, because I don't think you'd be the type to generalize across all startups like this.
It's my opinion. Working at a startup, you're underpaid and overworked for very little financial benefit.
Maybe in the dot com era. Venture backed startups nowadays pay better than a lot of typical programming jobs.