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I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and
by q845712 8y ago
I once joined a company that already had several hundred employees as an entry level software engineer. It was my least favorite job: I couldn't find a fit and I only lasted just over a year. However, during that year they IPO'd, and because I made it over the vesting cliff I was able to buy my options on my way out.
Ballpark numbers:
I had 300 options at $5.
post-IPO price was around $15.
I did the "sell to buy" thing, so I sold roughly 100 shares to pay for buying all 300.
I haven't sold the other ones yet but the stock is north of $50/share.
It seems like there's less than 20k shares total in circulation. (that's like an order of magnitude less than I expected? I took "shares held(000s)" and divided by "% Own", and rounded.)
I have the impression that most of the "old-timer" employees did quite well as long as they sold their stocks at the right time: one guy spent 6+ months traveling and then took his time finding his next job, another guy thinks he might be able to retire in his '40s.
edit: as elsewhere in this thread, I also worked at a startup that failed ($0), and I've left a couple that to my knowledge are still going ($ -4k , because both times i bought options on my way out just in case they make it)
- sk5t 8y agoI've never heard of an IPO'd company--meaning one that's listed on a public market like the NYSE or NASDAQ--with such thin trading, nor have I ever heard of option grants measured in hundreds...
- freddie_mercury 8y agoI got an option grant once for hundreds. It was for a promotion and, whatever the intended effect, I felt like "why did you even bother?"
- seattle_spring 8y agoMe as well (well, it was 1000 shares for a promo, but close enough). I left shortly thereafter.
- q845712 8y agoI think the original grant (4-year vesting etc) must have been for around 1,000 shares. and I joined pre-IPO. but I agree it was not a large grant, even for an entry-level position. Nonetheless it's the only one I've gotten that's worth anything right now!
- kemitche 8y ago"shares held(000s)" reads to me like "thousands of shares".
- q845712 8y agogood - so the numbers make more sense if they have three orders of magnitude more shares than i guessed above. Thank you!
- jsnell 8y agoYour numbers don't add up at all. - 20k total shares would mean a market cap of $1M, and an IPO price of $300k. Those are not viable numbers. - 20k total shares vs. you having 300 options means you would have been given 1.5% of the company in one year. That's totally absurd given you worked there for a year as an entry-level engineer and the company had several hundred employees.
- q845712 8y agoI agree that I must have misunderstood the reporting of the numbers of shares. the numbers i'm sure of are the rough number of options that i had vested after 1+ year.