Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I understand why that was done in the company’s early days, but there ought to be a better way to reward/incentivize early employees that doesn’t rely on the fickle and myopic nature of publicly-traded stock. The IPO is the carrot that you're dangling ahead of early employees many years prior to getting to that point. When you've gotten to a state when you're ready for an IPO, they are expecting to actually get tha…
> The IPO is the carrot that you're dangling ahead of early employees many years prior to getting to that point. Yes, that's essentially what I'm saying, but I wonder if there aren't some better alternatives to incentivize early employees when cash is scarce. Maybe (just off the top of my head) something like a contract to pay the employee a set dollar amount (with interest) at an undetermined point in the future, an…
Films that bring in hundreds of millions of dollars from the box office consistently manage to post up zero-dollar profits. (Screwing anyone who lacks the leverage to have demanded a percentage of revenue, as opposed to a percentage of profits.)
And yet, somehow, the funders keep bankrolling 'profitless' sequels after sequels.
As bad as the 1/9/90 split of outcomes for startups is for employees (1% of a good exit, 9% of slight profit/break-even, 90% of a loss), transitioning to your model will destroy the upshot of the 1%, and make the 9% even more contingent on your employer and funders not engaging in Hollywood accounting.
What you propose creates a colossal incentives for investors to turn the 9% case into an (on paper) 90% case - because otherwise, they'd be on the hook for a very large number of backdated salaries - the obligations for whom magically disappear if you structure the 9% case as a profitless exit.