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How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

wsj.com

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Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#41

Post by shanemhansen »

Domenic_S wrote: post #28
themagician wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy isn't about odds. It's about the why. The reason we don't let 99% of people buy shares of private companies has NOTHING to do with protecting the wealth of the 99%. Nothing. Zero. And to pretend like people with less than a million dollars in liquid assets are "too dumb" or "inexperienced" to purchase something is beyond insulting. It has everything to do with creating a private market where the 1% can g…

> to pretend like people with less than a million dollars in liquid assets are "too dumb" or "inexperienced" to purchase something is beyond insulting. Really? Because a lot of that group said they "didn't know any better" and were "misled" when it came to bad mortgages during the crunch. Whether you believe them or not, that was their argument and it worked. There are entire industries based on exploiting people wit…

But there's only one law "protecting" them from one specific kind of bad money decision. So I guess we're saying payday lenders are ok for poor people, rent-to-own is ok for poor people, but we must protect them from investing in the next amazon or dropbox at all costs. That's much riskier than the lottery.

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#42

Post by fuckyoujacques »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
notjustsox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because SoX is a dog whistle. If you point out that the real situation is more complicated, or if you bring in basic data like http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HK... which can illustrate changing market and global dynamics, you can guarantee that some rabid assholes will harangue you. So rather than have that heaped at my account, I used a sock puppet. I think it's pretty gross that you calle…

> Because I don't like dealing with assholes like you. Maybe that means I'm weaker than you. But whatever. You're a fucking jerk. You had me until your final paragraph. For reference: you're the jerk and I'm flagging your account.

I'm completely unsurprised that you think it's fine for matt manser to shame people for using a sockpuppet to express an opinion, but totally unacceptable to call him a fucking jerk for doing so.

It's really really disgusting that you decided to censor my reasoning because I happened to call a jerk a jerk.

[accurate but embarrassing information about jacques deleted]

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#43

Post by sohailprasad »

f00sion wrote: post #24

Does anybody have first hand experience with Equidate or EquityZen? Been thinking about this for the past few days and would be interested to hear any personal stories.

Given the nature of secondary transactions, many people don't want to talk publicly about their experience. That said, if you're interested in working with us, I can make introductions to a couple shareholders or investors that have worked with us in the past (and have agreed to share their story).

I'm also always happy to chat and answer any of your questions. Feel free to email me: sohail at equidateinc dot com

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#44

Post by shanemhansen »

DeBraid wrote: post #38
pthreads wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Collectively, we owe it to founders and investors, and the economy, to create reliable secondary markets. That’s why Equidate was founded." No we don't! There are no reliable secondary markets and there is not going to be one simply because they are based on pure speculation. It exists for one reason only - shareholders of pre-IPO companies don't want to wait years and hence are willing to trade their shares for imm…

Blaming derivatives is like citing the automobile for the reckless actions of the drunk driver behind the wheel. Derivatives are not inherently evil, nor is any 1 (longstanding) asset class.

But yet we still allow drinking, but drunk driving is illegal. We don't blame derivatives, we blame the reckless users of derivatives for the damages they caused.

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#45

Post by jacquesm »

fuckyoujacques wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because I don't like dealing with assholes like you. Maybe that means I'm weaker than you. But whatever. You're a fucking jerk. You had me until your final paragraph. For reference: you're the jerk and I'm flagging your account.

I'm completely unsurprised that you think it's fine for matt manser to shame people for using a sockpuppet to express an opinion, but totally unacceptable to call him a fucking jerk for doing so. It's really really disgusting that you decided to censor my reasoning because I happened to call a jerk a jerk. [accurate but embarrassing information about jacques deleted]

He simply asked you a question.

I'll ignore the rest of your factually incorrect prose on the assumption it is there simply to provoke some kind of response.

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#46

Post by fuckyoujacques »

jacquesm wrote: post #45
fuckyoujacques wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm completely unsurprised that you think it's fine for matt manser to shame people for using a sockpuppet to express an opinion, but totally unacceptable to call him a fucking jerk for doing so. It's really really disgusting that you decided to censor my reasoning because I happened to call a jerk a jerk. [accurate but embarrassing information about jacques deleted]

He simply asked you a question. I'll ignore the rest of your factually incorrect prose on the assumption it is there simply to provoke some kind of response.

Bullshit that's 'simply asking a question'.

'Why did you make a throwaway?' is an attack, an attempt to intimidate, and nothing more. Context matters.

[more accurate and embarrassing information about jacques deleted because it was wrong of me to stoop to his and matt's level]

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#47

Post by a_c_s »

Domenic_S wrote: post #28
themagician wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analogy isn't about odds. It's about the why. The reason we don't let 99% of people buy shares of private companies has NOTHING to do with protecting the wealth of the 99%. Nothing. Zero. And to pretend like people with less than a million dollars in liquid assets are "too dumb" or "inexperienced" to purchase something is beyond insulting. It has everything to do with creating a private market where the 1% can g…

> to pretend like people with less than a million dollars in liquid assets are "too dumb" or "inexperienced" to purchase something is beyond insulting. Really? Because a lot of that group said they "didn't know any better" and were "misled" when it came to bad mortgages during the crunch. Whether you believe them or not, that was their argument and it worked. There are entire industries based on exploiting people wit…

1. Mortgage contracts are too complex for a layperson to understand. Often the amount of time people are given to sign them is less than it would take to read the entire contract through just once. 2. Getting a mortgage is an instance where the seller is also the advisor (similar to an auto mechanic or a doctor). 3. Consumers were actively advised to take out mortgages that the seller knew were more expensive than the consumer could afford. 4. If a predatory auto mechanic deliberately advised a customer they needed repairs that they did not, that would be fraud on the part of the mechanic. The same thing applies to predatory lenders.

(There certainly were people who just made bad decisions. But there was also widespread, documented fraud on the part of lenders.)

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#48

Post by dlubarov »

mblevin wrote: post #16
chollida1 wrote: post #4

I think if anything, this type of arrangement will only increase. it won't be long until this gets securitized so you can buy a basket of pre-ipo stocks that are at the mezzanine level of funding. Employee's get to take a bit of risk off of the table, investors get to buy into pre-ipo stocks. As long as we can create a suitable vehicle to get around the share holder limit, and I'm pretty sure this is a well researche…

That would be great - but companies are going to be exercising right of first refusal and changing option plans left and right long before that happens. Actual price transparency (with low volume that will further distort the differences) for thumbsuck, pie-in-the-sky valuations in an overheated market has only a major downside for founders and investors. Remember your incentive stock option plan can be changed on a…

I don't know how legally sound it is, but the article quotes Kenneth saying "You’re not selling the shares, so the right of first refusal doesn’t apply".

Re: How Wall Street Middlemen Help Silicon Valley Employees Cash in Early

#49

Post by yourethejerk »

jacquesm wrote: post #39
notjustsox wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because SoX is a dog whistle. If you point out that the real situation is more complicated, or if you bring in basic data like http://blog.thomsonreuters.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/HK... which can illustrate changing market and global dynamics, you can guarantee that some rabid assholes will harangue you. So rather than have that heaped at my account, I used a sock puppet. I think it's pretty gross that you calle…

> Because I don't like dealing with assholes like you. Maybe that means I'm weaker than you. But whatever. You're a fucking jerk. You had me until your final paragraph. For reference: you're the jerk and I'm flagging your account.

> For reference: you're the jerk.

For reference, only a huge (and incredibly hypocritical) jerk would write that as a ban message.

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