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In the recent Square IPO, it showed that Jack Dorsey has an ownership stake worth $1.5 billion, while the (estimated) 1000 employees have an average stake of ro
by kzhahou 11y ago
In the recent Square IPO, it showed that Jack Dorsey has an ownership stake worth $1.5 billion, while the (estimated) 1000 employees have an average stake of roughly $300K.
Think about what you can do with one and a half BILLION dollars. Now think how far $300K will get you in the bay area.
This is completely typical and representative of the disparity between founder and employee equity.
- harryh 11y agoThe math that you did in the Square IPO thread was completely and totally wrong. Any conclusions you drew from your results are based on a false understanding of reality. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10389397 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10389397
- kzhahou 11y agoOk, please post the correct math, then we can compare and see who got closer. Jack's percentage is spelled out in the S-1, along with the top execs, directors, and investors. If you have any better data, including median equity and other percentiles for non-founders, that'd be very useful. Thanks.
- harryh 11y agoThe "13 people" you thought owned 61.5% of the company were VCs who did not own those shares as individuals but as managers of their VC funds.
- kzhahou 11y agoI didn't mention exec/directors in my original comment above, only Jack at $1.5B and average employee at $300K. Which of those is totally and completely wrong, and why? Are you saying that employees retained the full remaining 38.5% ?
- harryh 11y agoYes, you have massively miscalculated the % of the company owned by employees. On a further note, even once you get that number right, it silly to talk about the average employee stake from that number. You're dealing with a power law here where talking about an average makes very little sense.