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Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

businessinsider.com

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Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#61

Post by cm2012 »

dsirijus wrote: post #54

Ask HN: So, I'm the sole founder here with investor. The dude's awesome, but the contract we signed puts me in significant financial risk if the company doesn't turn up profitable. I have more than several employees (some of them will probably read this) who I pay regular and competitive money though I'm not particulary pleased with their output (but hey, it's improving, and there's not much of a talent pool here). M…

If you really think your employees will read this and know that you wrote this, you should probably delete this or reword this. Its bad for morale to appear flippant about employees.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#64

Post by dsirijus »

cm2012 wrote: post #61
dsirijus wrote: post #54

Ask HN: So, I'm the sole founder here with investor. The dude's awesome, but the contract we signed puts me in significant financial risk if the company doesn't turn up profitable. I have more than several employees (some of them will probably read this) who I pay regular and competitive money though I'm not particulary pleased with their output (but hey, it's improving, and there's not much of a talent pool here). M…

If you really think your employees will read this and know that you wrote this, you should probably delete this or reword this. Its bad for morale to appear flippant about employees.

The more I push the line of "I don't care what others think about me" to its absolute, the happier I am as a person. That does not neccesarily mean me earning more money or having a better team morale.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#65

Post by curun1r »

vladimirralev wrote: post #36
vinceguidry wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment reads as entitled to me. Startup founders have an insane number of things on their plate, and that list just keeps growing and growing. Startup employees work hard, but the founders still bear most of the risk and responsibility. What really needs to happen is for new ways to organize startups to distribute the risks and responsibilities better, so that it's not up to the goodness of the founder's heart…

What do you mean by founders bear most of the risk and responsibility? Most founders are not personally liable and haven't put significant amount of their own money in the company. At most they get some rough talk from the investors/customers, just like an under-performing employee would. They just stand to lose some of their time that could have been spent in more profitable employment.

> They just stand to lose some of their time that could have been spent in more profitable employment.

That's exactly what employees have to lose too. The way that I've always looked at it is that any employee, founder or not, should be entitled to current-valuation equity that's equal to the difference between their market rate and what they get paid by the startup.

Founders are frequently unpaid or poorly-paid at a time when the valuation is near zero, so they end up with a ton of equity. Early-stage employees should get considerable equity, since they're likely taking salaries well below market and the valuation is still tiny. Late-stage employees likely won't get much equity because they're not taking much below market and the equity is already worth a considerable amount.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#66

Post by johnward »

todd8 wrote: post #48

Tivoli Systems, where I worked, went public in 1996. Not long after that it was acquired by IBM (which bought control of the company through a tender offer for the shares). 26 or 27 of the original employees of the company made over one million dollars. Even the administrative assistant, hired in the early years, was able to pay off her house.

Same buyer didn't work out as well for us

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#67

Post by j_baker »

soperj wrote: post #44
Arjuna wrote: post #38

Although Woz wasn't a CEO... for those that don't know about this, I thought you would find it interesting [1]: "And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time." [1] Woz's entire post is on this pa…

I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

I agree that Woz's contributions to Apple are greatly understated and Jobs's contributions are greatly overstated, but I think you're taking it a bit far. Jobs was clearly a dickhead, but it's difficult to dispute that he built Apple into a great company.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#68

Post by zenogais »

cm2012 wrote: post #61
dsirijus wrote: post #54

Ask HN: So, I'm the sole founder here with investor. The dude's awesome, but the contract we signed puts me in significant financial risk if the company doesn't turn up profitable. I have more than several employees (some of them will probably read this) who I pay regular and competitive money though I'm not particulary pleased with their output (but hey, it's improving, and there's not much of a talent pool here). M…

If you really think your employees will read this and know that you wrote this, you should probably delete this or reword this. Its bad for morale to appear flippant about employees.

That same flippant attitude might be why the output of his employees is less than stellar. Chances are respectful leadership is absent at whatever company this is.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#69

Post by chermanowicz »

wuliwong wrote: post #57

When I joined a startup a couple years ago as a very early employee. The equity they offered was some tiny percentage, like 0.1%. I did the math and said, "you know, we would need to exit for a billion dollars for me to receive a million?" The founder seemed surprised at that. Nevertheless, I joined the startup. What I don't understand is if the company does sell, and I only get my 0.1%, I should be upset or call the…

I agree here to some extent, but there are a lot of ways companies can exit with employees receiving less than their equitable share of the company's acquisition price/value.

Ex. Salary & retention package for founders & certain execs while common stock purchase price is drastically reduced. (just one example)

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#70

Post by walshemj »

dsirijus wrote: post #54

Ask HN: So, I'm the sole founder here with investor. The dude's awesome, but the contract we signed puts me in significant financial risk if the company doesn't turn up profitable. I have more than several employees (some of them will probably read this) who I pay regular and competitive money though I'm not particulary pleased with their output (but hey, it's improving, and there's not much of a talent pool here). M…

That your probably a not very nice person with Narcissistic tendency's - no wonder you have a hard time attracting good talent
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