For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
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Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#2Interesting:
“It added independent board members and hired Dave Stephenson, a seasoned finance executive, from Amazon to become its chief financial officer. Current and former employees said they had taken the moves as signs that the company was finally set to reach the stock market.
In February, Stephenson was injured in a skiing accident. That slowed Airbnb’s IPO timeline, two people with knowledge of the situation said. An Airbnb spokesman said the accident did not have any impact.”
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#3Again, if you’re being paid in “equity” your contract should give you the option to sell back the vested equity at the last valuation.
Otherwise being paid “equity” is the same as not being paid.
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#4This is the number one reason I would not want to work for a startup. Even in the unlikely event that the company is successful, there's better than even odds that you won't be able to trade on that success for years to come. That means you're effectively locked in at the company until it suits the executives to let you out. No thanks. I'd rather have a higher salary and immediately tradable equity grants with a company that's already public.
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#5.. very clear memory of an overflowing, stuffed-crowded room of undergrad aged applicants at an AirBnB recruitment event a few years ago.. basically, the closer to age 22 you were, the better, it seemed. The saying "do not trust anyone over thirty" with a very, very different twist.
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#6I don't understand this article one bit. Why is the article speaking in the present tense? Why have dreams turned into disillusionment now, once the company has already announced they're going to IPO in 2020?
The article bellymoans about how employees can't cash out their shares yet - well yeah duh, that's kind of the whole risk/reward aspect of startups. Maybe they go public. Maybe they go under. Maybe they take a long time to go public. Why the article is about Airbnb, which has set a deadline for going public already, escapes me.
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#7.. very clear memory of an overflowing, stuffed-crowded room of undergrad aged applicants at an AirBnB recruitment event a few years ago.. basically, the closer to age 22 you were, the better, it seemed. The saying "do not trust anyone over thirty" with a very, very different twist.
Most of my coworkers are over 30 at airbnb.
Were you at a college recruiting event or something?
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#8"two tranches of employee equity that are set to start expiring in November 2020 and in mid-2021; those shares will become worthless if the company is not trading publicly by then, they said."
I don't understand the above statement. How does not being publicly traded make the options worthless? Doesn't it just make them more risky because you have to put up a pile of money w/o knowing when and at what value you will be able to sell?
Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#9.. very clear memory of an overflowing, stuffed-crowded room of undergrad aged applicants at an AirBnB recruitment event a few years ago.. basically, the closer to age 22 you were, the better, it seemed. The saying "do not trust anyone over thirty" with a very, very different twist.
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Re: For Airbnb employees, dream turns into disillusionment
#10>Starting in 2011, when the young company topped a $1 billion valuation, Airbnb prohibited workers from selling shares, while allowing its three founders — Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia — to cash out a total of $21 million.
This seems to be a common story with most startups. Founders making sure to get liquidity for themselves but not doing the same for employees.