5 ms·
Personally, I think you should treat all stock options/common stock as a lottery ticket with near zero value anyway when joining a startup. In 99% of situations
by imbusy111 8y ago
Personally, I think you should treat all stock options/common stock as a lottery ticket with near zero value anyway when joining a startup. In 99% of situations, cash is all you're going to get.
- dweekly 8y agoThis is practically reasonable but at most companies everyone's in the same boat (including founders / management) that the big upside is going to be a potential future large liquidity event. In this case, the company seems to have transitioned to being content to operate with low growth and high margins. The right thing for an employee to ask for would actually be profit-sharing. I've heard, for instance, this is how The Mathworks (which makes MATLAB) works; employees get no equity but they don't care because the company is quite profitable and the employee profit sharing is generous.
- jjeaff 8y agoWhile founders and investors may seem to be in the same boat, they rarely are. Investors are coming from a position of boom or bust to maximize that liquidity event because their success does not hinge solely on your company. If you are a founder, you are all in on it, and unless you are already independently wealthy, or come from money, you would/should most likely optimize for less risk with a healthy upside. For most founders, making 5-10 million on a liquidity event is a life changing event. For most series a and beyond VCs, that's chump change and they will push to put it all on black and let it ride.
- StudentStuff 8y agoBuffer is apparently generating $300k in profit monthly (and growing), they can likely offer future stock buybacks using their yearly profits.