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Most companies don't give 50% raises when you finally raise money (which is to say, most companies won't simply bring you up to market if you came in super earl
by acconrad 8y ago
Most companies don't give 50% raises when you finally raise money (which is to say, most companies won't simply bring you up to market if you came in super early).
- alfredallan1 8y agoNo, but if you came in super early, wouldn’t you have (negotiated at the start) more equity anyways? A super early employee with decent equity ought to be treated as a late stage founder - so if the founders don’t take 50% raises, neither should the super early employee with decent equity. It would of course be silly for someone super early to not negotiate significantly more equity than the usual couple of basis points (0.0x % of the company)
- acconrad 8y ago> If the founders don’t take 50% raises, neither should the super early employee with decent equity. You're missing the point of my original post. If a founder owns x100 the equity, why should an early employee be bound to the same salary restrictions? If anything, since I have 1/100th the equity, that means I should be able to get a multiple of some raise when series A comes through. Remember, equity is a lottery ticket (especially for an employee). If you're a founder, even if your startup fails, you can get a job as a highly-paid EIR or your founder reputation will allow you to join some other startup in a high level role (VP, Director, etc). This does not apply for engineer/employee #1.
- icedchai 8y agoIf founder has x100 the equity of employee #1, employee #1 screwed up.
- acconrad 8y agoWelcome to this entire conversation on why early employee compensation isn't fair.
- icedchai 8y agoMy point is Employee #1 should’ve asked for more. 1% isn’t enough. Maybe 5 or 10% is.
- rosser 8y agoYes, let's blame the person that structurally has less power in the dynamic for having that power imbalance used against them. Of course you can try to negotiate for more. Enough people want to work at a startup however that if you ask too much, you'll get passed on, and they'll just hire the next candidate who doesn't act so entitled to a meaningful piece of the founders' pie. It's exactly the same phenomenon that lets the big game studios chew up and spit out engineers: there's always someone else willing to take the job for less, or even just put up with the status quo. That's a massive part of the problem, and telling people to negotiate better doesn't address it — or even acknowledge it.
- icedchai 8y agoLet them take the worse candidate then. The startup is probably going to fail anyway. Jobs are easier to find than good engineers, especially your first few engineers. That requires taking a leap.
- maconic 8y agoWell, but then don't look for generic cookie cutter startups that everyone wants to work at :) Go after the startup where you as employee #1 are uniquely positioned to negotiate for. If you're employee #1 and you just graduated from college and this is your first job, and you have no special abilities beyond every other CS graduate across the United States, then yeah, you really don't have much negotiating power... nor do you at any other large company like Google either.
- alfredallan1 8y agoI’m not too sure why you’re being downvoted, but it is probably because you phrased your statement a bit awkwardly. But you’re right that (if there is only a very small number of co-founders) employee #1 should never be accepting 1/100 the total equity the founders have. Employee #1 screwed up in negotiating at least half way decent deal for themselves.
- icedchai 8y agoI was a bit blunt. However, it is up to potential employees to refuse offers that are not in their best interest.
- s2g 8y agoThey aren't treated as founders of any sort. They get paltry equity and then don't get raises.
- icedchai 8y agoThey do get raises. They just have to be persistent. Most engineers don't speak up and are bad negotiators.
- alfredallan1 8y agoAnd most of the few that do happen to be arrogant entitled pricks. People on this thread who're saying that the founders should try and be fairer towards engineers might actually have a point, although until recently I’d not have agreed with that sentiment myself, and might in fact have argued against it.