3 ms·

She's taking a full salary, which by itself negatively affects the startup's chances for success. She's not taking enough risk to get anything close to 35% in

She's taking a full salary, which by itself negatively affects the startup's chances for success. She's not taking enough risk to get anything close to 35% in my opinion. It doesn't get more sweetheart that that. Too bad she was too dumb to realize that her good position could have been very good later on.

tptacek 19y ago
If her work makes or breaks the company, and she's worth more than 80k on the open market, and she isn't "65% stake confident" in the founder, it's not a "sweetheart deal". It's a sucker's bet. Again, it seems like you're talking as if there were "rules" about equity participation. You would have to have an absolutely awesome idea to make, for instance, a security researcher participate in a startup for no salary. Even if you pay one $50k, and that $50k cripples the startup and maxes out hardship for everyone else in the company, it's still a sucker deal for the researcher. I'm using a familiar example to illustrate a point. It's a marketplace, not a secret society.
- run4yourlives 19y ago
  It is a marketplace. A marketplace where I know that good people exist that will not draw a standard salary and demand equity at the same time. (at least not in the levels we're using here) And I don't care what you're doing, if it takes 12 months to get a prototype in django, you aren't worth 80K.
  - tptacek 19y ago
    You're totally right about that. Sounds like there's a consensus that this project needed milestones.
    - Xichekolas 19y ago
      I think there is also consensus that this dev wasn't very good. Not sure I have seen a site so complicated that you couldn't at least roughly approximate it in 12 months with django. Whole deal sounds to me like she didn't give a crap about long term future of the company, she just wanted to ride the funding into the ground through her paycheck. I'd bet she demanded more equity in a moment of faith, but by that point they were doomed.

tptacek 19y ago

If her work makes or breaks the company, and she's worth more than 80k on the open market, and she isn't "65% stake confident" in the founder, it's not a "sweetheart deal". It's a sucker's bet. Again, it seems like you're talking as if there were "rules" about equity participation. You would have to have an absolutely awesome idea to make, for instance, a security researcher participate in a startup for no salary. Even if you pay one $50k, and that $50k cripples the startup and maxes out hardship for everyone else in the company, it's still a sucker deal for the researcher. I'm using a familiar example to illustrate a point. It's a marketplace, not a secret society.

run4yourlives 19y ago
It is a marketplace. A marketplace where I know that good people exist that will not draw a standard salary and demand equity at the same time. (at least not in the levels we're using here) And I don't care what you're doing, if it takes 12 months to get a prototype in django, you aren't worth 80K.
- tptacek 19y ago
  You're totally right about that. Sounds like there's a consensus that this project needed milestones.
  - Xichekolas 19y ago
    I think there is also consensus that this dev wasn't very good. Not sure I have seen a site so complicated that you couldn't at least roughly approximate it in 12 months with django. Whole deal sounds to me like she didn't give a crap about long term future of the company, she just wanted to ride the funding into the ground through her paycheck. I'd bet she demanded more equity in a moment of faith, but by that point they were doomed.