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As someone who has both started and worked very early at multiple startups, it's so incredibly outlandish to hear someone claim that they brought in a business
by jamiequint 11y ago
As someone who has both started and worked very early at multiple startups, it's so incredibly outlandish to hear someone claim that they brought in a business plan and some ideas, and that ideas alone should represent an equal percentage ownership to someone who actually worked on building a business for multiple years. In startups no battle plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. There is a reason why most successful companies release an initial version of a product early, then adapt to market conditions rather than sitting down, writing a long business plan, and executing it.
If Jeremy's MechE experience and background in self-driving cars was so valuable how did Cruise manage to pivot from just offering an autonomous driving add-on that only worked on the highway to building a fully-autonomous city-based driving solution without him. How did they manage to raise millions of dollars, write all the code, and build all the hardware without him. It just doesn't add up.
- foobarqux 11y agoCruise hasn't (yet) built fully autonomous cars. Arguably even Google hasn't done it yet.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- toomuchtodo 11y agoDoes Cruise Automation hold any autonomous vehicle patents? I could not find any in Google Patents.
- TAForObvReasons 11y ago> it's so incredibly outlandish to hear someone claim that they brought in a business plan and some ideas, and that ideas alone should represent an equal percentage ownership to someone who actually worked on building a business for multiple years. I really don't understand your view here. If the value of the business plan didn't merit equal percentage, that should've been made clear at the onset. At the time, according to Jeremy's complaint it was valued at 50% of the company: ... Vogt agreed that Guillory should be a co-founder and 50% equity owner of Cruise. If the business plan and some ideas didn't merit 50% ownership, Vogt shouldn't have agreed that Guillery should be a 50% equity owner of Cruise. Simple as that.
- foota 11y agoPresumably because equity is also for the work done?
- toomuchtodo 11y agoAssumptions aren't contract law. If someone says you own 50% of the company with them, even if you do nothing, you own 50%.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- hashkb 11y agoIt's super rare that founder shares don't vest. YC would have advised it.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoWhat happens to ownership interests/claims that YC isn't aware of?
- pbreit 11y agoWhat if they stop working with you and buy out your worthless stake?
- jamiequint 11y agoOwnership as stated in a Y Combinator application 100% of the time implies there is also a vesting agreement. I've filled out my own (successful) YC application which stated that I owned 50% of my company. My own equity was still subject to a vesting agreement requiring that I continue to be employed at the company. A proposed (or even stated) equity split doesn't grant outright ownership. It would be impossible to raise investment from any professional Series A/B investor (anything involving a priced round) without founder and employee vesting, typically on a 4 year vesting schedule with a 1 year cliff at the very least.
- prawn 11y agoPresumably the money raising came from Vogt. And there are other engineers at Cruise capable of assisting with the rest?
- davemel37 11y ago> it's so incredibly outlandish to hear someone claim that they brought in a business plan and some ideas, and that ideas alone should represent an equal percentage ownership to someone This is a filter bubble that startup founders need to snap out of...in the real world, two people can agree to anything, and general startup best practices dont dictate or say anything about the past, they can just guide you in the future. That startup advice about how to split equity is sound advice and it is arguably outlandish to not follow it...but that in no way shape or form makes it the reality of what actually happened. People agree to all sorts of things all the time.