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Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

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Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#181

Post by drmath »

gsibble wrote: post #94
stan_kirdey wrote: post #75

Engineers: always negotiate for higher base salaries. In the vast majority of cases—especially during acquihires—your equity will be worth little or nothing. Founders and VCs still get paid; employees rarely do. Don't just accept promises. Ask for the 409A valuation, liquidation preferences, and pay bands. If a company won’t provide transparency, that’s your signal. Equity is a lottery ticket. Salary is money in the…

I've tried to ask dozens of companies that wanted to hire me just for how many shares were outstanding and/or authorized. They almost always refused to share. You can almost never get any info on equity until it's too late and you realize it's worth nothing.

> I've tried to ask dozens of companies that wanted to hire me just for how many shares were outstanding and/or authorized.

"Wanted to hire me" as in they made an offer, or an earlier step? At offer stage, I've never had a company refuse to answer these questions. I don't have "dozens of companies" worth of experience though, maybe one dozen if that.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#182

Post by Yeul »

siliconc0w wrote: post #175

These stories really kill the golden goose because it means a lot of talent just won't work at a startup. YC isn't particularly great here either, they are pro founder but not pro startup employee. Most YC companies offer pretty paltry equity to even the first few hires - and that is even assuming you aren't going to get screwed down the line.

The people who go to work for start-ups are usually young. There comes a certain time in life when you have a family that relies on you and you get old enough that you start to make plans for retirement.

That's when you get a real job at a very boring stable company and stop being delusional.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#183

Post by daemonologist »

quickthrowman wrote: post #161
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, roughly $600,000-800,000 is enough to lean FIRE, the last time I checked.

If I retired at 40 I don’t think I’d want to remove more than 2% a year from the principal amount, which is.. $12,000-$16,000 a year. How is that possible? Even with a fully paid off house, you still have property taxes, utilities, maintenance. Even 4% a year which is recommended for a 30 year retirement, you’re only taking out $24,000-$36,000 a year.

3.5% historically holds up over longer retirements (I ran a rough model and got ~98% success for 50 years). $21k is quite lean - you'd have to pick and choose luxuries like a car, no roommates, travel, etc. - but for a single person in many parts of the country it's doable. The big gamble is that Medicaid might get cut further, which would definitely force you back to work.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#184

Post by azinman2 »

djoldman wrote: post #138
stan_kirdey wrote: post #75

Engineers: always negotiate for higher base salaries. In the vast majority of cases—especially during acquihires—your equity will be worth little or nothing. Founders and VCs still get paid; employees rarely do. Don't just accept promises. Ask for the 409A valuation, liquidation preferences, and pay bands. If a company won’t provide transparency, that’s your signal. Equity is a lottery ticket. Salary is money in the…

Indeed. Likewise with non-guaranteed bonuses (gotta love the "plus a discretionary bonus!" commentary during offer discussions). It's always worth offering to take equity as long as they agree in writing to not ever dilute your shares and vest them immediately. However, it's unlikely that any company will agree. It's best to imagine compensation as exactly one's salary. Then (virtually) all surprises are good.

I don’t see how a company could promise this. Everyone gets diluted for every funding round, for example.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#185

Post by RainyDayTmrw »

marssaxman wrote: post #20
TrackerFF wrote: post #7

Financially speaking, is it even worth joining a startup anymore? Compared to just going to any of the big companies. The latter will likely pay you more, with less risk involved. Seems like the best shot is to strive toward becoming financially independent, and then just go for the startup route and follow your passion. If you it doesn't work out, no big deal - if things turn out great, you'll just be even better of…

Was there ever a time when you could reasonably expect to make more money by joining a startup? That has never been the case so far as I am aware, and I'm currently on my seventh tour through startup-land...

2010s startups were a lottery ticket with bad aggregate odds but real upside. If you wanted to make a risky bet, or if you believed you were better at picking winners than the rest of the market, there were some real opportunities to be had. If the new trend is a cabal of investors and executives hollowing out all the upside, in the rare event of a success, that's stark.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#187

Post by azinman2 »

para_parolu wrote: post #180
sokoloff wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$1M in one shot leaves you with around $600K after taxes in most states. That’s enough to pay you around $24-30k/yr. Unless you already had several other million saved already, I bet you’d be working again.

$25k/yr can be decent living in some places.

In no place where you’re getting a 1M pretax offer.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#188

Post by dom96 »

dmoy wrote: post #176
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hell, roughly $600,000-800,000 is enough to lean FIRE, the last time I checked.

Lean fire on $600k-$800k is taking an extreme gamble on the cost of health insurance continuing to be subsidized way beyond Medicaid levels. Which you might be fine with, but it's a pretty big risk. Unsubsidized healthcare in a lot of places in the US costs $10k-$20k per person per year. For early retirement that eats up like $400k-$500k per person.

This is why you don't retire in a country with private healthcare

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#189

Post by dom96 »

Yeul wrote: post #182
siliconc0w wrote: post #175

These stories really kill the golden goose because it means a lot of talent just won't work at a startup. YC isn't particularly great here either, they are pro founder but not pro startup employee. Most YC companies offer pretty paltry equity to even the first few hires - and that is even assuming you aren't going to get screwed down the line.

The people who go to work for start-ups are usually young. There comes a certain time in life when you have a family that relies on you and you get old enough that you start to make plans for retirement. That's when you get a real job at a very boring stable company and stop being delusional.

Not everyone decides to have a family. For some getting that boring and stable job is the only way to get to take some risks later in life.

Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth

#190

Post by pembrook »

mawadev wrote: post #71

I'm waking up personally to the unethical side of Software development as well. You can either do little and get paid pocket change or you can provide a ton of value for pocket change next to some promises lulling you in, where the value of your work exponentially increases, but you will see nothing of it and whatever you do: you are still a replaceable cell in excel to them and there will be ways where you get dragg…

Okay, but how much do you think you deserve as an employee who has invested none of your money in the company and decided to join on a 6-figure salary only after the company is already through YC, is funded by top investors and looks attractive?

If you’re instantly replaceable by any dime-a-dozen engineer than can install packages on npm and use react components and add a thumbs up to slack messages…to not get accidentally rich because you just took a high paid tech job a year ago…seems fair?

I just fail to see why everyone in the comments here believes they deserve to be compensated at the level of the top 0.01% of all people without starting their own business.

Start your own company if you think it’s so easy to be a founder instead of an employee. Nobody is stopping you.

I also think it’s some crazy cognitive dissonance to assume you’d be able to walk right into a FAANG sr. eng gig instead. As if most startup employees haven’t tried before joining [insert startup].

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