Will they still be selling equity and compensation data or getting out of that business? Technically that’s still a data product too.
It's aggregate.
And? That’s still taking customers data and selling it
Carta to exit secondary trading business
101–110 of 117 posts
Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#102This is a good move, but still an inadequate response to what originally happened. It’s dogging deep questions about who had access to what data and just how bad the security controls were around startups’ sensitive information. Shutting down this bit of the business doesn’t put folks at ease that their information is still safe with Carta. The Carta CEO has botched the response here multiple times now and this lates…
Name a startup that doesn't have shit security or privacy controls (or regulatory, or ... really anything).
If you’re a fintech startup you very much do or you’re toast.
Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a former employee of a place that did Carta. Employees are already left in the dark about the cap table, liquidity preferences, venture debt, and the C-Suite's relationship with the Board. Based on this exchange, I'd now see usage of Carta as a red flag when looking at any new start-up. Maybe Schwab or Shareworks are ok (Shareworks has been fine in my own experience). The investors are already doing hyper-leverag…
I worked for a startup where I repeatedly asked basic questions to estimate the value of my shares. I never got a straight answer. So I applied to a FAANG and got in. When I was onboarding the FAANG asked what my shares I was leaving behind were worth (they take this number and use it to calculate starting bonus). I had no idea, gave an honest estimate, and later found out that I had given them a number about 60% low…
I flat out never trust any numbers from startups. Some companies are still using the SaaS 10-13x revenue as an estimation, despite the current economic climate and often in spite of a) not reqlly being a SaaS and b) not growing that fast.
Throw in liquidation preferences, etc. and it's not really possible to know anyway. I've been at three startups. Two were acquired and one is still plateaued over 10 years after I left. Total value of my stock so far? $0.
It'd have to be some rare unicorn for me to treat startup options as anything other than a lottery ticket.
Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#104Earlier quoted context omitted.
They did address it... by completely eliminating the department. They didn't deep dive retro it, but in that, we know the answer.
No, there is no acknowledgement that anything undue ever happened. Only that business in this department hasn't been financially successful and that customers could have concerns. Nothing about those concerns actually being valid. This is vague misdirection at best.
It’s in the previous post: https://henrysward.medium.com/how-we-handle-captable-informa...
> On Friday we had an internal policy violation that affected three companies. I’ve been in touch with the founders and I’m appalled we made that mistake and it should never have happened. It is unacceptable and we’ve dealt with the violation on Saturday morning and are continuing the investigation to make sure it never happens again.
Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#105Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#106Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a former employee of a place that did Carta. Employees are already left in the dark about the cap table, liquidity preferences, venture debt, and the C-Suite's relationship with the Board. Based on this exchange, I'd now see usage of Carta as a red flag when looking at any new start-up. Maybe Schwab or Shareworks are ok (Shareworks has been fine in my own experience). The investors are already doing hyper-leverag…
I worked for a startup where I repeatedly asked basic questions to estimate the value of my shares. I never got a straight answer. So I applied to a FAANG and got in. When I was onboarding the FAANG asked what my shares I was leaving behind were worth (they take this number and use it to calculate starting bonus). I had no idea, gave an honest estimate, and later found out that I had given them a number about 60% low…
> asked what my shares I was leaving behind were worth
I always decline to answer these questions by saying "it's not relevant; I'd like to be compensated according to my background/experience and the role". If there's a specific number I'm looking for, I'll also ask for that. But I'd never directly answer the "what was your last salary/comp?" question.
Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably to make it difficult for any prospective customers to find. Anyone already in the know can rest assured “things have changed” because they’ve been following the news cycle and will readily find the relevant tweets and medium posts. That in theory cause this all to fall out if the spotlight. Any future unwitting potential customer who didn’t think to search for the current CEOs personal medium account to fi…
Well uh, he emailed every customer about it. He also emailed every customer about his previous Medium article, about a different controversy, earlier this year (I hadn't known about it until seeing the email).
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Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#109Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Fast forward to today, our business is broken down as follows: the captable business is about $250M/year, fund administration is about $100M, private equity is about $20M, and the secondary trading business is about $3M. $250M is more than a few million.
The poster with the original complaint said they were paying about US$10,000 a year for their cap table service. Are there 25,000 startups using this service?
Yes, Carta has tens of thousands of customers.