5 ms·

They won the lottery on the backs of their employees. Unfortunate, but also unfortunately acceptable in today's climate.

by tjr225 8y ago

darawk 8y ago
You mean the employees who chose to work there understanding the terms of their deal? The employees who probably just made a ton of money themselves from this deal? What exactly is unfortunate about this? Are you upset that some people made a lot of money?
- sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
  > You mean the employees who chose to work there understanding the terms of their deal? As if anyone can just choose to be working for a company with the right terms, in a position to make a multi-billion dollar sale, and also somehow not get screwed out of what they thought their terms guaranteed.
  - darawk 8y ago
    So, you are positing that the employees were screwed here? Do you have some evidence for that claim?
    - sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
      Only if you're suggesting that the employees chose to work there because they thought they had the right terms and were expecting a multi-billion dollar sale from which to benefit. If you have evidence for that, I expect you've freely chosen to work for such a company yourself and that you're entirely confident in your situation. (Or else the money just doesn't matter that much to you. That's ok too!)
  - Trundle 8y ago
    you're right, people can't. If you want shot at a significant chunk of a multi billion dollar sale you start your own company. As the github founders did. If you want up be paid $x a fortnight right from the get go then you get a job. I don't see how the success of people who chose to do A means people that did B got screwed, just because they both worked on the same project. The decisions they made and context of their choosing to work on it were still different things each with their own pros and cons Unless there was some more to it. Like share /options shenanigans that might not be legally fraud but fraud in spirit. No one seems to be saying that happened here though.
    - khazhoux 8y ago
      > If you want shot at a significant chunk of a multi billion dollar sale you start your own company. As the github founders did. False dichotomy. People join startups (esp. early ones) thinking they have a shot at a significant chunk. But even for the very first employees, the equity numbers are ridiculously small. I don't understand why they sign up for it. All my friends in startups work damn hard and poured huge chunks of their lives into it, and it has not been fun watching them be offered meager positions post-acquisition, while their founder/CEOs get multi-million paydays.
      - paulie_a 8y ago
        That is why you get paid for your time, and it is probably a lot. Leave work at work and move on when it is time. It's just a job. Those founders did much more than the people you know. They took a massive risk at complete failure
      - Trundle 8y ago
        Does those people being wrong mean anything from a moral /rightness / "getting screwed" perspective? I make mistakes like anyone else, sometimes pretty big ones to the tune of quite a lot of money. Wouldn't say I've been screwed though. I just fucked up.
  - adventured 8y ago
    They're all free to attempt to start their own GitHub competitor, if they're able. The founders of GitLab did.
    - sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
      Yes, hooray for freedom. Have the same opportunity, personal fininces, acceptable level of risk, and luck is another matter.
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        I don't see how it makes any sense to demand a hefty cut from a successful investment while intentionally turning a blind eye to the risk that was assumed by the actual investors. For exampld, I really doubt these we would be discussing how employees were obliged to pay up the company's debt if Github was bankrupt, and how it would be immoral for them to not be responsible for the venture's finantial outcome.
        deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
- mrep 8y ago
  I agree with you in the sense that people are accepting those offers rationally. However, those employees just like the instagram and whatsapp employees got extremely lucky. 99% of startup employees will likely not make what they could if they worked for a big tech companies like Microsoft which pay with liquid relatively minimal risk stock. My point is that startup equity is shit in all but the extremely rare unicorn cases for everyone except the founders and VC's. I always laugh when I see startups offering microscopic equity while founders horde orders of magnitude more stock acting like what they have done is worth hundreds of times more what your early employees do.
- khazhoux 8y ago
  In fact, many people don't understand the deal in detail (e.g., what may happen during an exit), nor the cap table. E.g., one person I know, an Employee #1, was shocked to discover that investors only held ~15% of the startup he was at, which he joined just a couple of weeks after incorporation, and the founders held nearly 80%. His equity was IIRC 1%, which he thought was great, and was assuming that the founders had maybe 10% each, with a big option pool and a much-larger investor ownership. Ok, so his numbers didn't change just from learning everyone else's, but he wouldn't have agreed to 1% if he'd known. It's not the founders' fault. They acted in their own self-interest, and did not volunteer information that would have negatively impacted their position. But the employee still had a right to be upset, same as any of us would be if we discovered that a teammate for the last several years had been pulling in twice your salary, when you were told "sorry, this is as high as we can go."
  - lovich 8y ago
    >It's not the founders' fault. They acted in their own self-interest, and did not volunteer information that would have negatively impacted their position. This is a super capitalist thing to say. Anyone can understand _why_ the founder acted in their own self interest here, but to say it's not their fault is to just remove all agency from them. Maybe it's in my best interest to have someone murdered so I can take over their business. Would you say it's not my fault if I did so?
    - kamaal 8y ago
      The Pie fallacy is false on shorter periods of time. In the real world. The Pie size is fixed. Or atleast the Pie size expands only in cycles. So in one particular cycle people try to gather as much Pie for them as they can. There fore ultimately one has to be selfish, even if not out of nature, but out of sheer compulsion. These days you have to do these things just not to get walked over.
      - lovich 8y ago
        You don't have to be selfish, we're not automatons that have no free will. If you're starving, or need shelter or some other basic to survival, then yes you need to be selfish. After that being selfish is a choice
matte_black 8y ago
No one forced them to work there.
- tjr225 8y ago
  I'm not sure what part of my comment you are responding to.
  - tehwebguy 8y ago
    This part: > on the backs of their employees
    - tjr225 8y ago
      Is my comment somehow unclear? I don't think I said or even implied that anyone forced anyone to work anywhere.
      - tehwebguy 8y ago
        Perhaps you should just say specifically what you implied, then?
        tjr225 8y ago
        If it's that unclear then I'll rephrase it: If you make a gamble that requires someone's help to pull off, and the gamble is successful, you should share a reasonable amount of your success with the people whom made your success possible. I don't think these founders are sharing a reasonable amount with their employees, and I also think it's sad that this is not only accepted, it appears to be encouraged. Also employee owned cooperatives are cool, and I wish there were more of them.
        tehwebguy 8y ago
        > I don't think these founders are sharing a reasonable amount with their employees Based on what?
chongli 8y ago
I often see debates around here about whether or not people should accept equity as part of their compensation or prefer all-cash. My perception is that there seems to be a lot of support for the cash-only position. That is fine. Nobody gets to have their cake and eat it too. People who chose to accept the risk, in this case at least, were richly rewarded. Lots of people at other companies choose not to accept the risk and they are protected if their employer happens to go bust.
megablast 8y ago
Did Obama win the lottery? Did Bill Gates?
- lovich 8y ago
  Bill Gates was born to a rich family with connections, so he basically did win the lottery
- ionised 8y ago
  In a manner of speaking, yes.

They won the lottery on the backs of their employees. Unfortunate, but also unfortunately acceptable in today's climate.

by tjr225 8y ago

They won the lottery on the backs of their employees. Unfortunate, but also unfortunately acceptable in today's climate.

darawk 8y ago

You mean the employees who chose to work there understanding the terms of their deal? The employees who probably just made a ton of money themselves from this deal? What exactly is unfortunate about this? Are you upset that some people made a lot of money?

sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
> You mean the employees who chose to work there understanding the terms of their deal? As if anyone can just choose to be working for a company with the right terms, in a position to make a multi-billion dollar sale, and also somehow not get screwed out of what they thought their terms guaranteed.
- darawk 8y ago
  So, you are positing that the employees were screwed here? Do you have some evidence for that claim?
  - sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
    Only if you're suggesting that the employees chose to work there because they thought they had the right terms and were expecting a multi-billion dollar sale from which to benefit. If you have evidence for that, I expect you've freely chosen to work for such a company yourself and that you're entirely confident in your situation. (Or else the money just doesn't matter that much to you. That's ok too!)
- Trundle 8y ago
  you're right, people can't. If you want shot at a significant chunk of a multi billion dollar sale you start your own company. As the github founders did. If you want up be paid $x a fortnight right from the get go then you get a job. I don't see how the success of people who chose to do A means people that did B got screwed, just because they both worked on the same project. The decisions they made and context of their choosing to work on it were still different things each with their own pros and cons Unless there was some more to it. Like share /options shenanigans that might not be legally fraud but fraud in spirit. No one seems to be saying that happened here though.
  - khazhoux 8y ago
    > If you want shot at a significant chunk of a multi billion dollar sale you start your own company. As the github founders did. False dichotomy. People join startups (esp. early ones) thinking they have a shot at a significant chunk. But even for the very first employees, the equity numbers are ridiculously small. I don't understand why they sign up for it. All my friends in startups work damn hard and poured huge chunks of their lives into it, and it has not been fun watching them be offered meager positions post-acquisition, while their founder/CEOs get multi-million paydays.
    - paulie_a 8y ago
      That is why you get paid for your time, and it is probably a lot. Leave work at work and move on when it is time. It's just a job. Those founders did much more than the people you know. They took a massive risk at complete failure
    - Trundle 8y ago
      Does those people being wrong mean anything from a moral /rightness / "getting screwed" perspective? I make mistakes like anyone else, sometimes pretty big ones to the tune of quite a lot of money. Wouldn't say I've been screwed though. I just fucked up.
- adventured 8y ago
  They're all free to attempt to start their own GitHub competitor, if they're able. The founders of GitLab did.
  - sdiupIGPWEfh 8y ago
    Yes, hooray for freedom. Have the same opportunity, personal fininces, acceptable level of risk, and luck is another matter.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      I don't see how it makes any sense to demand a hefty cut from a successful investment while intentionally turning a blind eye to the risk that was assumed by the actual investors. For exampld, I really doubt these we would be discussing how employees were obliged to pay up the company's debt if Github was bankrupt, and how it would be immoral for them to not be responsible for the venture's finantial outcome.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
mrep 8y ago
I agree with you in the sense that people are accepting those offers rationally. However, those employees just like the instagram and whatsapp employees got extremely lucky. 99% of startup employees will likely not make what they could if they worked for a big tech companies like Microsoft which pay with liquid relatively minimal risk stock. My point is that startup equity is shit in all but the extremely rare unicorn cases for everyone except the founders and VC's. I always laugh when I see startups offering microscopic equity while founders horde orders of magnitude more stock acting like what they have done is worth hundreds of times more what your early employees do.
khazhoux 8y ago
In fact, many people don't understand the deal in detail (e.g., what may happen during an exit), nor the cap table. E.g., one person I know, an Employee #1, was shocked to discover that investors only held ~15% of the startup he was at, which he joined just a couple of weeks after incorporation, and the founders held nearly 80%. His equity was IIRC 1%, which he thought was great, and was assuming that the founders had maybe 10% each, with a big option pool and a much-larger investor ownership. Ok, so his numbers didn't change just from learning everyone else's, but he wouldn't have agreed to 1% if he'd known. It's not the founders' fault. They acted in their own self-interest, and did not volunteer information that would have negatively impacted their position. But the employee still had a right to be upset, same as any of us would be if we discovered that a teammate for the last several years had been pulling in twice your salary, when you were told "sorry, this is as high as we can go."
- lovich 8y ago
  >It's not the founders' fault. They acted in their own self-interest, and did not volunteer information that would have negatively impacted their position. This is a super capitalist thing to say. Anyone can understand _why_ the founder acted in their own self interest here, but to say it's not their fault is to just remove all agency from them. Maybe it's in my best interest to have someone murdered so I can take over their business. Would you say it's not my fault if I did so?
  - kamaal 8y ago
    The Pie fallacy is false on shorter periods of time. In the real world. The Pie size is fixed. Or atleast the Pie size expands only in cycles. So in one particular cycle people try to gather as much Pie for them as they can. There fore ultimately one has to be selfish, even if not out of nature, but out of sheer compulsion. These days you have to do these things just not to get walked over.
    - lovich 8y ago
      You don't have to be selfish, we're not automatons that have no free will. If you're starving, or need shelter or some other basic to survival, then yes you need to be selfish. After that being selfish is a choice

matte_black 8y ago

No one forced them to work there.

tjr225 8y ago
I'm not sure what part of my comment you are responding to.
- tehwebguy 8y ago
  This part: > on the backs of their employees
  - tjr225 8y ago
    Is my comment somehow unclear? I don't think I said or even implied that anyone forced anyone to work anywhere.
    - tehwebguy 8y ago
      Perhaps you should just say specifically what you implied, then?
      - tjr225 8y ago
        If it's that unclear then I'll rephrase it: If you make a gamble that requires someone's help to pull off, and the gamble is successful, you should share a reasonable amount of your success with the people whom made your success possible. I don't think these founders are sharing a reasonable amount with their employees, and I also think it's sad that this is not only accepted, it appears to be encouraged. Also employee owned cooperatives are cool, and I wish there were more of them.
        tehwebguy 8y ago
        > I don't think these founders are sharing a reasonable amount with their employees Based on what?

chongli 8y ago

I often see debates around here about whether or not people should accept equity as part of their compensation or prefer all-cash. My perception is that there seems to be a lot of support for the cash-only position. That is fine. Nobody gets to have their cake and eat it too. People who chose to accept the risk, in this case at least, were richly rewarded. Lots of people at other companies choose not to accept the risk and they are protected if their employer happens to go bust.

megablast 8y ago

Did Obama win the lottery? Did Bill Gates?

lovich 8y ago
Bill Gates was born to a rich family with connections, so he basically did win the lottery
ionised 8y ago
In a manner of speaking, yes.