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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

#511

Post by charles_f »

supportengineer wrote: post #216
fusslo wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my equity from 2years pre-acquisition: ~$2800. Then the CEO gave out bonuses when everyone threatened to quit. Then after his 3 month vacation to Italy, he came back driving his new Ferrari. My equity from 4 years ( employee ~60, grew to over 500 ): worthless. No one is able to exercise any options. They also readjusted when the valuation came below the total raised, making the value of my vested shares ~$13k ( down…

The fun part comes when you put in 20 years doing this, and your dream is to buy a nice house, and you finally get your seven-figure payout, and.... it's not enough to buy a house. Because now a house is 3 million dollars.

That's still a hefty down-payment.

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

#513

Post by gertlex »

throw0101d wrote: post #502
gertlex wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside to the offtopic: I'm surprised the google street view footage is 13 years old.

It launched in 2007, so approaching twenty years: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Street_View

I meant and left out a key word; "most recent". Whoops!

I'm used to seeing yearly or every-other-year streetview updates for locations I look at regularly.

That said, might be mixing up my broader impression with the interval of satellite photo updates in the google earth history. (but my bay area neighborhood does indeed have streetview history updating every year or so; obviously this is probably on the high end given proximity to tech companies...)

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

#515

Post by mertleee »

This is an exemplary reason to not work for a startup.

Cash is king - never work for free or let some overzealous founder (who has tons of equity and is ok working for poverty wages) try to encourage you to work longer or harder "because equity go up one day".

The founders of Windsurf are clearly horrible people and the fact they were DM'ing people on twitter trying to explain being awful people really reflects the current state of the valley.

Garry Tan even deleted a comment on this tweet where to Windsurf employee #2 he said "looks like you left $20M on the table". These people see employees as replaceable widgets and to them this is just a game build around the "excitement of building".

Legitimately F*CK these people.

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

#516

Post by mawadev »

ponector wrote: post #434
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…

Welcome to the real world. It is the case with pretty much every job, not only IT.

I still feel the need to bring clarity by pointing out the obvious in the most direct unfiltered manner, as you can see other commenters in this thread trying to frame it differently with an absurd of confidence while doing so.

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

#517

Post by const_cast »

thedevilslawyer wrote: post #375
achierius wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The engineers build the product. They do the actual work. Let's flip your 'reason' around: the engineers are the reason the VCs have a job at all, since the entire point of the job is to find people building big things and funding them to get a cut. They are secondary, the actual product -- and the people who build it -- are what matters, morally and economically.

An engineer in a non-startup also builds the project and does the actual work. It's not special. Trading money and opportunity cost for sweat is what makes it equity. Also, engineers are not the reason VCs have a job.

> Also, engineers are not the reason VCs have a job.

How are they not? VCs don't actually do any productive work - they don't make anything.

In order to invest in something, anything, you need the something. That's a pre-requisite for investing. Engineers build the product. Doesn't even just apply to software, this applies to everything.

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

#518

Post by const_cast »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #436
kome wrote: post #349

this is something that my feeble European brain will never understand: why people in American start-up keeps getting scammed with pseudo "private" equities, stock options, that are not on a market, and therefore cannot be priced? equities surrounded by very obscure (or no) legislation, that if you get fired or decided to leave you cannot keep. it just make no sense but americans loves them.

European salaries are laughably low even compared to low ball offers from US startups. Essentially options for good (but not great) sr engineers are 1. Get 120k salary in Europe (on higher end) 2. 500k at FAANG in US (salary + RSU) 3. ~200k at startup in US + lottery tickets Both option 2 and 3 strictly beat option 1 (especially after taxes) so European should get off the high horse and recognize reality that they ar…

It depends on what you value. For example, if you want a high quality of life and acceptable work-life balance, that is very, very hard to find in the US. IMO, 500K a year doesn't matter too much if you're fat, lonely, and want to kill yourself. Not saying that everyone in the US is like that, but certainly it seems to be a much higher degree.

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

#519

Post by Snowfield9571 »

fsckboy wrote: post #462
AceJohnny2 wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

offtopic, but I love comparing realtor glamour shots HDR'd out the wazoo with StreetView https://maps.app.goo.gl/2aEXsdH9hU3o4SZw5 (winter, March 2012)

that's not a glamour shot, that's just a sunny day. the dirty little secret of the southern california coast is it is cloudy more than half the time. west la, downright depressing. they call it "the marine layer", i call it cloudy as fuck.

Ya that’s completely false lol. Lots of reasons to criticize LA, being cloudy isn’t one of them

https://wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/clilcd.pl?ca23174

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

#520

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

rightbyte wrote: post #504
cpursley wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get it, at this point you move to Baja or Portugal (for similar climate) and live like a king without ever having to work again (unless you want to). Or a cheaper east coast state if you wanna stay in the US on the coast and have access to to all the same fast food and Walmarts.

Ye I really don't understand why people don't take their money and run more often. And like, run a convince store somewhere off.

I'm one of those people who took "the money and [ran]"

I'm a digital nomad and have been traveling full time for 7 years now. It's great, it's a good balance of work/life balance but one thing you slowly start to notice is when you leave your country, no matter if you learn the language or how much integrate yourself into that country, you will always be an outsider to the majority in that country.

As an american you will always be a Yankee, Farang or Gringo and will carry the weight of the US collective.

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