why would anyone work in startups as early devs anymore. Tell me what is the upside? There seems to be only downsides. Startup Fails , you loose - Gets acquired - you loose What is the motivation to perform .
So "heads I win, tails you lose!"
Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
81–90 of 553 posts
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#82My base salary was fine but the magic was in the stock.
I got a payout on acquisition by a FAANG+ (as first employee). It was only 300K but I put 50K of that into Nvidia. Actually I invested all my payout from my startup stock into tech stocks. And I got a terrific golden handcuffs deal.
After that I could afford to retire and I did.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
1m isn't enough to really retire in in silicon valley
Sure, but if you're 10+ years into your career and have been financially conservative (i.e. have a positive net worth), a lump sum of $1m could be enough to retire to a lower-cost location.
Hell, roughly $600,000-800,000 is enough to lean FIRE, the last time I checked.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#84I was aquihired by a FAANG. The headline "startup bought for x million" is almost always a lie, either direct or by omission. First, when a startup is bought, its generally not bought at the headline rate. So if you see a "bought for $45m" that doesn't mean People who own shares all got a % of 45m. That number is normally bullshit, but also a "total package" which include share offers for joining the new company. Thi…
1m isn't enough to really retire in in silicon valley
probably right, but I'm not in SV. So its enough to pay off the mortgage and provide enough monthly income to not care what job I'm doing
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#85What I find amusing is that YC’s Garry Tan is going around explaining to Prem how he actually got a good deal and that the Windsurf founders were very generous to their early employees. Meanwhile from his perspective he joins a company with friends he’s known for years, takes on basically the same risk that the founders did, probably gets some fraction of the equity they did for that work (10%? Less?) and then when payoff time comes he gets cheated out of that too.
If I was a venture capitalist dependent on 20-somethings believing in the dream I sold them maybe I wouldn’t write snarky replies on them on Twitter when this happens and actually look into fixing things for early employees (like, maybe, giving them similar terms that the founders get), but that’s just me I guess.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#86[deleted]
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#87What I find amusing is that YC’s Garry Tan is going around explaining to Prem how he actually got a good deal and that the Windsurf founders were very generous to their early employees. Meanwhile from his perspective he joins a company with friends he’s known for years, takes on basically the same risk that the founders did, probably gets some fraction of the equity they did for that work (10%? Less?) and then when p…
He has just as much financial interest in the dream being false as he does in people believing it, which your recommendation seems to overlook.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#88My base salary was fine but the magic was in the stock. I got a payout on acquisition by a FAANG+ (as first employee). It was only 300K but I put 50K of that into Nvidia. Actually I invested all my payout from my startup stock into tech stocks. And I got a terrific golden handcuffs deal. After that I could afford to retire and I did.
Did you also post this recently in Blind ? If it is so you might want to fuzz the numbers a bit.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#89https://x.com/ahmaurya/status/1948491614160122308 Garry Tan posted "sounds like a tweet that cost $20M" which he later deleted.
Smells like a strong bias against employees in favor of management and founders.
Re: Windsurf employee #2: I was given a payout of only 1% what my shares where worth
#90I am surprised that the employment agreements between execs/founders and Windsurf didn't address this. A cautious investor--or even a cautious key employee joining the team--would have locked the founders and key employees down to prevent them from being hired away without some recourse. This is especially important when all of the value was in the employees. There should be lawsuits forthcoming...
Non competes are illegal in California, there is no legal way investors can lock founders and employees down. This is venture capital investment risk. The employees, who are most of the value (aside from potential IP and customer contracts), can walk at any time.
I understand your clarification. You should be able to use vesting schedules, right of first refusal to counter, careful definition of IP and trade secrets with assignment to the company, right of repurchase of shares, etc.
This is indeed venture capital risk, but this case lays bare the exorbitant amount of risk for investing in these types of companies--perhaps especially in California?