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Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

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Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#1
Wanted to hear about experiences from employees who have RSUs/options in a private company and whether they were able to sell their shares on the secondary market?

Were you able to sell? What platform did you use? Were you able to sell w/o board approval? If so, were you able to use private forward contracts to complete a deal?

Anything you can tell me about the experience would be much appreciated!

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#3

Not sure why this is Marked dead. Seems like a perfect question for this forum. I too would like to know the answer.

first submission by a new account, guessing from a throwaway behind tor so that the question can't be tied back to a specific person or company.

That's why it's useful for a handful of people to have showdead enabled: so that good questions or comments lost to antispam/antitroll filters can be fished out from the abyss.

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As for questions like "Were you able to sell w/o board approval," I feel like this depends on the terms of the agreement, no? I mean I'm keen on hearing the data for the sake of having a dataset, but the question itself doesn't seem to be immediately relevant unless the person answering the question happens to work at the same company as the person asking the question.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#4
I haven't personally, but I know people that have. The people that I know that sold shares used Equity Zen (https://equityzen.com/). The company I worked for has/had a "first right of refusal" option in the equity contracts, which basically means that when EquityZen offers you a deal, you have to bring the deal to your company and they can decide to buy your shares for the same price instead of letting you sell your shares to an outside party (which they might not want).

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#6

I'm curious about this as well. Does your employer know that you sold or not?

Usually, they'll have to, since such stock is usually conditioned on you granting the employer the Right of First Refusal (i.e. the chance to beat any offer from a buyer you find).

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#8
post #6

I'm curious about this as well. Does your employer know that you sold or not?

Usually, they'll have to, since such stock is usually conditioned on you granting the employer the Right of First Refusal (i.e. the chance to beat any offer from a buyer you find).

so basically... there is not a market, and it's a fake stock

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone sold their employee stock on the secondary market?

#10
post #8
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually, they'll have to, since such stock is usually conditioned on you granting the employer the Right of First Refusal (i.e. the chance to beat any offer from a buyer you find).

so basically... there is not a market, and it's a fake stock

No?

If you can find a buyer for a certain amount, you can sell for that amount. The company can just opt to be the buyer.

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