4 ms·
If generally an employee stock option pool is ~5% of the company, then why is it worth spending time optimizing for that by firing people before stock vests? I
by JonFish85 9y ago
If generally an employee stock option pool is ~5% of the company, then why is it worth spending time optimizing for that by firing people before stock vests? I suppose it'd be possible that management/investors view the employee ownership as getting out of hand, but even if the options pool is 10-15% (which I think would be fairly ridiculously large), it's likely mostly held by early employees who may have already vested.
It just seems like a silly thing to spend time doing, monitoring who will be vesting soon to fire them. Sure, maybe for one or two executives who are vesting integer percents of stock, but beyond that, it's not worth the time, and definitely not worth the backlash.
- chrisbennet 9y agoGreed isn't always rational. Scott Kupor [managing partner at VC firm Andreessen Horowitz] wrote an article [1] suggesting that a 10 year exercise window for employees who leave: " is really a direct wealth transfer from the employees who choose to remain at the company and build future shareholder value, to former employees who are no longer contributing to building the business/ its ultimate value." This seems to suggest that the "investment" by early employees who leave shouldn't be treated like the early investments from VC's who decline to keep investing at some point. [1] http://a16z.com/2016/06/23/options-timing/ http://a16z.com/2016/06/23/options-timing/
- gkop 9y agoWow. Remind me never to be an employee at one of Scott's portfolio companies.