21–30 of 128 posts
Folks may not realize it while doing so, but developing complex gameplay that is perfectly balanced can be considered a feat of linear algebra. So that quote made me smile :)
Edit: Read Blog Entry 2, Part 1: http://www.peteradkison.com/blog-entry-2-wizards-of-the-coas...
I love the idea of small scale stock offerings, but isn't this illegal? My understanding was that selling stock like this is a private equity offering and that private equity offerings are limited to a small number of people unless the investor is sufficiently rich (the government likes to use the term "accredited investor").
[deleted]
Peter says again and again how he did it might not have been the safest way, that perhaps he was lucky it worked out, that there could have been a better approach. He does recognize it’s all water under the bridge, that in the end, he got success. But just keep this in mind — the way they did it is probably not the best way. Edit: Read Blog Entry 2, Part 1: http://www.peteradkison.com/blog-entry-2-wizards-of-the-coas…
I always feel dumb asking - but doesn't the total number of shares matter? The real thing you're buying is a fraction of the pie when someone buys your company, and it would seem to matter quite a lot whether the pie was cut into 10^3 or 10^6 pieces. Indeed, I wish we could just talk about ownership percentage instead of shares to remove the ambiguity. Why is there a reluctance for people to talk about this openly?
The number of shares should be figured into the estimated price. If they figure the company is valued at $100, and a share at $0.50, then they should be issuing 200 shares. You should be completely mistrustful of anyone who offers you shares and doesn't tell you the # of shares outstanding. Alternately, if they tell you the value of a share, they should tell you the estimated value of the company. The alternative is…
this is an amazingly important point that many people I've seen new to the startup world ignore to their peril. it is too easy to get big eyes when you hear you are getting 50,000 options not realizing that it is only 0.000001% of the company since you don't know # of shares outstanding, across all classes of shares.
>If I had a deep, intellectual conversation with someone, I’d give them 10 shares. At $0.50 per share, that was only $20 of fictional value, certainly a fair trade at the time! Is his multiplication bad, or am I misunderstanding something terribly?
"We did no mathematical analysis of how the stock should be priced; we didn’t have the skill to do that" Folks may not realize it while doing so, but developing complex gameplay that is perfectly balanced can be considered a feat of linear algebra. So that quote made me smile :)
I loved it and I'm calling it a roaring success in most respects, but balance is not something I would attribute to the first several incarnations.