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Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

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Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#71

Post by gyardley »

dpflan wrote: post #4

Has any HNer participated in such a secondary sale? I think it could be informative to describe the experience, whom you dealt with, how a price was agreed upon, how your company discussed secondary sales, etc.

I'd just keep your LinkedIn profile up to date with a clear indication that you might have an interesting amount of stock (co-founder, executive, early employee, etc.) and that you're no longer with the company.

When secondary brokers have more buyers than sellers of a particular private stock, they come looking for you - and that's the time when you want to do your selling, not when people are freaking out and you're competing with others actively looking to unload their holdings.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#72

Post by eli_gottlieb »

danjayh wrote: post #23

I think that this is just the beginning. In my opinion, we're heading for a tech bust that's going to spread to the rest of the economy, and deflate additional bubbles (housing, for one). The government has been pushing cheap money for the better part of a decade in the name of creating the appearance of a 'recovery', but what they've really done is build a new house of cards. Make no mistake: the 'free' money that's…

>(edit/note: I do find it odd that under a Democratic president, the major flows of borrowed cash (debt) have been directed to the big guys, while under a Republican president, they were directed to the little guys. Both were a terrible idea, but it seems backwards for what one would expect.)

Both of them were chiefly monetary initiatives rather than fiscal. The Fed acts pretty much independently of who's President, which explains the "oddness".

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#73

Post by maneesh »

pfarnsworth wrote: post #43
danjayh wrote: post #23

I think that this is just the beginning. In my opinion, we're heading for a tech bust that's going to spread to the rest of the economy, and deflate additional bubbles (housing, for one). The government has been pushing cheap money for the better part of a decade in the name of creating the appearance of a 'recovery', but what they've really done is build a new house of cards. Make no mistake: the 'free' money that's…

The money under Bush went to the Iraq war, which benefited the "big guys", not the small guys. The small guys have yet to ever benefit from anything.

well---now they have plenty of food, medicine, internet, education---sometimes a rising tide can help raise a lot of (but perhaps not all) ships.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#74

Post by shostack »

djhn wrote: post #67
mavelikara wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does this generally piss off the employer? I wonder if the employee faced any sort of retaliation or anything from this. No, it should not piss off any employer! The equity that is offered to you to as part of your employment is remuneration for your efforts. The employer should not be upset at you for wanting to convert that to cash. It is true that the employer might not want their stock to go to outside parties.…

I completely agree with you, but this isn't mutually exclusive with facing retaliation (in terms of internal politics, for instance.)

That's more to the point I was getting at. There's the legal situation, and then the political one. Selling shares in a private company could raise some red flags from management thinking an employee wants to cash out and bail, management worried about the perception of the company's health (internally and externally), management concerns about loss of control, etc.

All reasons why managers might make life difficult for said employee after the fact.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#75

Post by Spooky23 »

nerfhammer wrote: post #51
danjayh wrote: post #23

I think that this is just the beginning. In my opinion, we're heading for a tech bust that's going to spread to the rest of the economy, and deflate additional bubbles (housing, for one). The government has been pushing cheap money for the better part of a decade in the name of creating the appearance of a 'recovery', but what they've really done is build a new house of cards. Make no mistake: the 'free' money that's…

> because in many areas the median house now costs enough that it's beyond the reach of the median person. That environment is unsustainable over a large time scale. "Too expensive" does not equal bubble. It has to be expensive because speculators are driving the price up, thinking they're all fooling each other. As soon as they get get scared that the other speculators might be thinking of selling the price suddenly…

There is no shortage of real estate, and real estate historically is very cyclical.

Even in an insane place like SFO, a few high profile failures can shutdown the cash pipeline for all sorts of companies. No cash, no coders, no rent.

2008 proved that when people are underwater, they walk away from mortgages because they see no consequence.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#76

Post by bcg1 »

I've been in the "its probably a unicorn bubble" camp and I think this is evidence of that, but does this really make a difference outside of those companies and their VCs?

What kind of situation could turn this into a systemic risk? Institutional investors getting involved? Is there any evidence of that happening? "Unicorn derivatives"? Is there any indication such a thing might exist?

Seems like it is possible that a unicorn crash could just leave a bunch of rich guys in Cali somewhat less rich than when they started.

And of course employees might be hurt by this I guess... especially the young ones who traded work for worthless stock. But you know what... I signed up for the army after 9/11 so I know what its like to get bamboozled in your 20's... it sucks but you get over it. If I was in their shoes though I would probably looking to cut my losses and liquidate too.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#77

Post by kbenson »

throw2192015 wrote: post #15
dpflan wrote: post #4

Has any HNer participated in such a secondary sale? I think it could be informative to describe the experience, whom you dealt with, how a price was agreed upon, how your company discussed secondary sales, etc.

I have participated as a seller. I offered some of my exercised options for sale on SharesPost [1]. The SharesPost representative contacted me; she said that she had a potential buyer interested, but the bid was slightly lower than my initial ask and the volume they wanted to buy was a little lower than what I had offered to sell initially. We agreed on the deal. I filled out some paperwork and sent proof that I was…

Offtopic: Assuming your account is a throwaway you just created so as not to reveal your selling history, and you based the name on some variation of "throwaway", the month, the date and the year.... then you used the wrong year. ;)

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#78

Post by matt_wulfeck »

bcg1 wrote: post #76

I've been in the "its probably a unicorn bubble" camp and I think this is evidence of that, but does this really make a difference outside of those companies and their VCs? What kind of situation could turn this into a systemic risk? Institutional investors getting involved? Is there any evidence of that happening? "Unicorn derivatives"? Is there any indication such a thing might exist? Seems like it is possible that…

Unicorpses are merely a symptom of the greater ailment: long term near-zero interest rates.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#79

Post by matt_wulfeck »

Domenic_S wrote: post #46
danjayh wrote: post #23

I think that this is just the beginning. In my opinion, we're heading for a tech bust that's going to spread to the rest of the economy, and deflate additional bubbles (housing, for one). The government has been pushing cheap money for the better part of a decade in the name of creating the appearance of a 'recovery', but what they've really done is build a new house of cards. Make no mistake: the 'free' money that's…

> in many areas the median house now costs enough that it's beyond the reach of the median person I don't see it. Maybe bubbly areas like SJ will correct a bit, but at the end of the day real estate is a supply/demand calculation. YoY% increases don't look like they did in the last bubble. The more people who want to live somewhere -- whether renters or buyers -- the higher the prices go, until sales start dropping o…

Free money does a heckuva job creating demand.

Just look to how much online universities typically charge for tuition. Answer: the max given in federal financial aid.

Re: Secondary shops flooded with unicorn sellers

#80

Post by ryguytilidie »

I worked for a company about 18 months ago and the CEO sent an email to everyone "prohibiting" selling your shares on the secondary market because he was worried about a hostile takeover.

None of this made sense to me. You're going to restrict your early employees from making money? No one owns more than .5% so why would one be worried at all? To me it just seemed like another example of a CEO believing their employees are second class citizens and that they don't deserve any money until the CEO is RICH.

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