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I'd love to see the cap tables of some of those companies, to quantify where the differences are between then and now. Does anyone know of any publicly-availabl

by pcl 11y ago

I'd love to see the cap tables of some of those companies, to quantify where the differences are between then and now. Does anyone know of any publicly-available repositories of late-90s cap tables?

Animats 11y ago
There's The Autodesk File, which has most of the early financial history of Autodesk.[1] Autodesk was established with $60K put in by the founders. There was no additional funding prior to the IPO. There was only one class of stock. Autodesk sold AutoCAD for cash, and that generated enough money that they were able to grow based on real profits. At one point VC funding was considered. That's an important story, and it's fully documented.[2] Here's part of why it was turned down: "In particular, our ability to grant stock options to new employees was severely constrained by limits on the number available, by forcing the option exercise price to above the price paid by the investor (who received much better terms on his preferred than the employee would on his common stock), by retiring from the pool any options granted to an employee who subsequently left the company, and by imposing a four-year vesting period on all options, which the founders of the company felt transformed the options from their original purpose of allowing employees to share in the company's success to a kind of twentieth century indentured servitude which compelled employees to stay with the company or face forfeiture of their financial gains." That's what it was like before the era of hyped dot-coms, when companies built real products which people bought. [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html [2] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html
- gaius 11y ago
  This is my favourite https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/section2_2_12.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/section2_2_12.html The more things change, the more they stay the same :-)
  - Animats 11y ago
    Not really. There was such a software vacuum back then. There were lots of obvious, needed products that nobody had written yet. All you had to do was write them. Now, all the obvious products have been done.

by pcl 11y ago

I'd love to see the cap tables of some of those companies, to quantify where the differences are between then and now. Does anyone know of any publicly-available repositories of late-90s cap tables?

Animats 11y ago

There's The Autodesk File, which has most of the early financial history of Autodesk.[1] Autodesk was established with $60K put in by the founders. There was no additional funding prior to the IPO. There was only one class of stock. Autodesk sold AutoCAD for cash, and that generated enough money that they were able to grow based on real profits. At one point VC funding was considered. That's an important story, and it's fully documented.[2] Here's part of why it was turned down: "In particular, our ability to grant stock options to new employees was severely constrained by limits on the number available, by forcing the option exercise price to above the price paid by the investor (who received much better terms on his preferred than the employee would on his common stock), by retiring from the pool any options granted to an employee who subsequently left the company, and by imposing a four-year vesting period on all options, which the founders of the company felt transformed the options from their original purpose of allowing employees to share in the company's success to a kind of twentieth century indentured servitude which compelled employees to stay with the company or face forfeiture of their financial gains." That's what it was like before the era of hyped dot-coms, when companies built real products which people bought. [1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/autofile.html [2] https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_32.html

gaius 11y ago
This is my favourite https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/section2_2_12.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/section2_2_12.html The more things change, the more they stay the same :-)
- Animats 11y ago
  Not really. There was such a software vacuum back then. There were lots of obvious, needed products that nobody had written yet. All you had to do was write them. Now, all the obvious products have been done.