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At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

theinformation.com

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Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#91

Post by jedberg »

zawerf wrote: post #44
bnt wrote: post #8

I think the article misses the point: are we now in an era where you actually expect to get stock when you join a company? As a former Toptal employee: IMHO the co-founder in question was widely regarded as a horrible manager, often pushing people to burnout and generally imposing a culture of secrecy and mistrust. The VPs they ousted were nothing better. I personally went through several burnouts while there, but al…

I don't know if it's still true, but Netflix supposedly offers a really high base salary with no equity. I think the logic is that you can just buy the stock yourself with the higher salary if you believed in the company enough to want equity.

That's not exactly how it works. They give you a total comp number, and then you choose the cash/equity ratio yourself, which you can change each year. A lot of people chose the all cash option because they didn't understand there equity option, so they changed it to give everyone a little bit of equity regardless, but you can still opt to get extra equity in lieu of cash, and change that election every year.

I think it is an amazing plan. I was able to choose more equity because I had a working wife and no kids. Others chose more cash. One guy chose 100% equity, and is now retired.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#92

Post by gruez »

nemetroid wrote: post #87
dang wrote: post #84

This was posted yesterday, but the article was hard-paywalled. We asked The Information if they would unlock it for HN readers, as they have been doing recently (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20630974 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20423483 ). They agreed, so now that HN readers can actually read the article, we rolled the clock back on this discussion. Edit: sorry, I pasted in the wrong link so i…

What does "hard-paywalled" mean? It's still paywalled to me, even though the link has utm_source=hackernews and the browser sent a Referer header.

paywalled for me as well

>What does "hard-paywalled" mean?

Paywall that can't be bypassed (eg. private browsing or social media referral)

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#93

Post by ilikehurdles »

elsewhen wrote: post #47
staticautomatic wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they weren't lured with the promise of equity. The promise was that they'd get equity if there was a subsequent funding round . The investors, especially, have zero right to complain.

FTA: “I was told the conversion [of Toptal into a corporation] would happen in a number of months,” said Aaron Diek, who is based in central Texas and says he worked for Toptal in 2014 and 2015, when Toptal said it was generating $80 million in revenue per year. “I asked on a number of occasions, and the answer [from Du Val] was always ‘it’s coming, it’s coming.’

This seems to be par for the course for any startup that drinks its own Kool-aid. I've been told many times at every organization I've been at by enthusiastic co-workers believing the exit is right around the corner. It never was and all of those previous orgs have either gone bankrupt or had really unfavorable acqui-hires. I believe in enjoying my work environment, being paid fairly, and doing work that positively impacts society. Beyond that, I treat every share of equity as toilet paper in the negotiation stage -- when it comes to a private company organized as a startup/VC-leech.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#94

Post by m0zg »

"No stock for employees" in a startup actually sounds great to me. The approximate value of that part of the package is about zero, but few people realize that, and a lot of employees get taken advantage of when startups offer lower pay in exchange for minuscule (and dwindling through dilution) equity. Receiving competitive amounts of hard cash would be better for 99.9% of the people.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#96

Post by hnbroseph »

jedberg wrote: post #91
zawerf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's still true, but Netflix supposedly offers a really high base salary with no equity. I think the logic is that you can just buy the stock yourself with the higher salary if you believed in the company enough to want equity.

That's not exactly how it works. They give you a total comp number, and then you choose the cash/equity ratio yourself, which you can change each year. A lot of people chose the all cash option because they didn't understand there equity option, so they changed it to give everyone a little bit of equity regardless, but you can still opt to get extra equity in lieu of cash, and change that election every year. I think…

> One guy chose 100% equity, and is now retired.

being able to choose 100% equity would suggest a particular level of financial independence before even starting. how long did they work without a salary? did they regularly sell equity as a salary-replacement?

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#97

Post by tvladeck »

jedberg wrote: post #89
dang wrote: post #84

This was posted yesterday, but the article was hard-paywalled. We asked The Information if they would unlock it for HN readers, as they have been doing recently (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20630974 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20423483 ). They agreed, so now that HN readers can actually read the article, we rolled the clock back on this discussion. Edit: sorry, I pasted in the wrong link so i…

It's still paywalled, FYI.

+1, I still can't access it.

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#98

Post by [deleted] »

nemetroid wrote: post #87
dang wrote: post #84

This was posted yesterday, but the article was hard-paywalled. We asked The Information if they would unlock it for HN readers, as they have been doing recently (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20630974 , https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20423483 ). They agreed, so now that HN readers can actually read the article, we rolled the clock back on this discussion. Edit: sorry, I pasted in the wrong link so i…

What does "hard-paywalled" mean? It's still paywalled to me, even though the link has utm_source=hackernews and the browser sent a Referer header.

[deleted]

Re: At Booming Toptal, No Stock for Employees or Investors

#100

Post by charlesdm »

jedberg wrote: post #91
zawerf wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's still true, but Netflix supposedly offers a really high base salary with no equity. I think the logic is that you can just buy the stock yourself with the higher salary if you believed in the company enough to want equity.

That's not exactly how it works. They give you a total comp number, and then you choose the cash/equity ratio yourself, which you can change each year. A lot of people chose the all cash option because they didn't understand there equity option, so they changed it to give everyone a little bit of equity regardless, but you can still opt to get extra equity in lieu of cash, and change that election every year. I think…

Don't you pay tax when you actually get the equity? How is it different to getting cash and then just buying the stock?
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