Carta to exit secondary trading business • Hacker News Board

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#111

Post by vikramkr » Tue, Jan 09, 2024, 5:46 PM UTC

blindriver wrote: post #4

I thought his responses were terrible and worthy of being fired over the weekend, but I am impressed with his quick action on this. I guess you can put me down as “neutral” towards this person.

Given that the last Carta scandal their response was to amplify their owns candal by sending everyone a link to their weird ranty medium article about how the mainstream media is bad, I will give them credit for at the least not responding that poorly this time. I mean, not that the response is great but it's better than going door to door to all their customers and shouting in their face "hey, did you know I'm in the middle of a scandal? I'm being scandaled right now! Would you like to learn more about how I screwed up?"

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#112

Post by choppaface » Tue, Jan 09, 2024, 6:27 PM UTC

therobots927 wrote: post #100

choppaface wrote: post #70

Earlier 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’ve had two offers where only the number of shares was quoted, one of them from a YC alum. One now has a record of making false statements about their valuation and has gone under, the other got sold for pennies. If they only give you number of shares it’s a big red flag and could be outright fraud.

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#113

Post by choppaface » Tue, Jan 09, 2024, 6:28 PM UTC

athoscouto wrote: post #96

choppaface wrote: post #70

Earlier 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've worked on some companies that used Carta. In some of them, I had access to cap table, preferences, total raised debt, etc. In others, I could see only my number of options and their strike price. Is up to the company how much they want to share, Carta can be used on both ways.

I agree it’s up to the company how much they share. And companies that sure very little are not worth smart talent.

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#114

Post by __loam » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 2:01 AM UTC

bozhark wrote: post #106

helloericsf wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, this is bad.

Why do people work for such terribleness?

To pay rent

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#115

Post by acjohnson55 » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 4:29 AM UTC

hipadev23 wrote: post #47

They let $3M out of $373M jeopardize the entire company. What incredibly poor foresight and management controls.

It's because they thought secondary could be the real business, because the hypothetical total addressable market is so large.

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#116

Post by mkreis » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 7:59 AM UTC

notfried wrote: post #11

smt88 wrote: post #6

This is the best response, but remember it's a response to getting caught. They didn't grow a conscience or replace leadership. My company is still taking our business away from Carta, and I don't think anyone's plans should change because they repented after being caught. Things might be different if the CEO stepped down, but he hasn't yet.

A quick search shows me a number of alternatives to Carta, but none that I have ever heard of or come across. Is there any competitor that is considered the second best? Carta just seems to me what everyone had been using without a second thought.

I can recommend Ledgy

Re: Carta to exit secondary trading business

#117

Post by siegel » Wed, Jan 10, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

That's nice that they are leaving the secondary trading business. Of course, they can restart that business again.

But this all begs two questions:

1) Do their legal agreements protect customers sufficiently in terms of use of customer data? I'd argue no. They are a bit of a mess, but very broadly give rights to Carta and its affiliates to use customer data in all sorts of ways. Quite arguably they had every right to do what they did here.

2) Legal agreements aside, forget policies on use. How on earth did a CartaX employee get access to Carta customer data?

The reality here is that the loose legal restrictions on Carta's use of customer data plus what appears to be loose internal restrictions on employee access to customer data makes me wonder what ELSE they are doing with customer data that we CAN'T so easily see.