4 ms·

I had the pleasure of being employee #38. I wrote the visual diff sheet compare feature, among others. I left about two years ago when the company had grown to

I had the pleasure of being employee #38. I wrote the visual diff sheet compare feature, among others. I left about two years ago when the company had grown to 200 people. Tracy, Ralph, and Ryan are authentic people. They really cared for everyone who worked there. (I can remember Ryan pestering me to take more vacation time). Their success is well-deserved. I’ve spoken personally to customers who didn’t even have a computer or smart phone - the first piece of modern technology they used was an iPad for PlanGrid. This acquisition is a testament to the moat PlanGrid built in the field. Competitors tried their hardest to sell to the CxOs/head office, only to find out no one in the field wanted to use it. (There are parallels to iPhone in the enterprise space.) Know your customers and build something they want to buy. Always good advice :) Anyway congrats to the whole team!

deanmoriarty 8y ago
How much does employee #38 make from his/her vested equity these days? I understand this is a very nosy question, but nonetheless having one more datapoint on the financial outcome from an early employee in a company that exited at ~$1B would be valuable. It truly couldn’t get better than that (assuming the funds were raised at ok-ish terms), so I assume your number must be in the multiple 7 figures at least!
- strtup-lotto 8y ago
  Using a throwaway for obv. reasons. I'm employee lower thirties in a company that recently went public with a similar valuation. Unlike gp, I am still with this company, and really like it there. Ignoring taxes, vested comes in at about 1 mill. I'll pay about half that in taxes. I have a few hundred k in unvested from subsequent awards. I've hit the start up lotto, but I will not likely pocket 7 figures from equity for a long while, assuming continual equity awards. Well, if the stock does really well, I could pocket 1M, but it needs to go up quite a bit. Honestly, I would likely have made more over these many years in aggregate at a FAANG. But I've enjoyed myself and still look forward to work every day. I'm blessed and lucky. But the startup lotto is not as good as you might think. Never count equity in a start up. Go for the salary.
  - deanmoriarty 8y ago
    Really appreciate your comment, these insights are very valuable.
  - drizzzler 8y ago
    Why half in taxes? Isn't this a capital gain? So 15-25% fed cap gain plus about 10% California income (if even applicable)
    - ohazi 8y ago
      Alternative Minimum Tax There's a good summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_minimum_tax#Stock_options https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_minimum_tax#Stock_... Basically, if you are given stock options with a strike price of $small, and then the company has a liquidity event and you exercise your options when the shares are at $large, your AMT taxable income increases by $(large - small), and you'll owe taxes on it for the current year (at AMT rates), regardless of whether you sold (or were able to sell) any shares. This is in addition to the short or long term capital gains that you'll eventually owe after you actually sell shares. Apparently some people went bankrupt after the first dot-com bust because they owed absurd amounts of money in taxes but weren't able to sell any of their shares (e.g. due to employee lockup) until after their company's stock tanked. If this happens and you are able to afford the taxes, there's a mechanism to carry your losses forward and get AMT credits in future years, but the rules are hilariously complicated, and you either won't get credit for anywhere near what you paid initially, or you'll end up getting a tiny tiny fraction back for the next hundred years. It kind of sucks. There's been talk of fixing this for a long time, but I don't think it's ever gotten anywhere. *I'm not an accountant; do your own taxes.
      - deanmoriarty 8y ago
        Keep in mind you pay the AMT, so you need to have liquidity, but you will get those extra taxes paid back eventually, via AMT credits. Source: me, I have gone through it exactly and recouped ~100k of AMT I paid, in about 4 years.
    - 8y ago
- xenadu02 8y ago
  If I had stayed the full four years I would have vested between $600-$800k; I only vested around half that. The only people who hit low seven figures are very early employees, maybe #1-3. The exceptions are the really unique unicorns like Google or FaceBook, which print so much money everyone gets rich.
  - deanmoriarty 8y ago
    Cool. Sounds like your full grant at the end would have been for ~0.1% of the company, so assuming a 50% dilution over the years, the original grant was in the ~0.2% range. It's a little bit stingy but overall (unfortunately) in line with my expectations of what employee #38 usually is granted. One more point that confirms one should really go work as employee at a startup for many reasons _except_ the financial outcome expectations. Thanks!
    - xenadu02 8y ago
      If you want to launch your own startup it is a great way to get some experience; if it pays off that also gives you a nest-egg to live on while you launch or bootstrap. If you don't want to or can't work for one of the BigTechCos then it still pays well compared to most jobs. Complaining about a six-figure payoff during an acquisition is one of the most Bay Area™️ things you can possibly do :)
frutiger 8y ago
> I can remember Ryan pestering me to take more vacation time This is a very low bar for caring for an employee.
- myth_drannon 8y ago
  Also vacation is a liability on the company's checkbook. Many companies stop adding vacation days after certain amount is reached to force you to take them.
- xenadu02 8y ago
  PlanGrid has (or had?) "unlimited" vacation time. Unlike some places they really encouraged people to use it. There was no issue with liabilities on the books since you weren't banking vacation days; it didn't make any financial difference to PlanGrid if you took 0 vacation days or 5 weeks. Ryan was trying to make sure I wasn't over-working myself and I appreciated the thought (it just so happens I was waiting to take a long Christmas vacation).

deanmoriarty 8y ago

How much does employee #38 make from his/her vested equity these days? I understand this is a very nosy question, but nonetheless having one more datapoint on the financial outcome from an early employee in a company that exited at ~$1B would be valuable. It truly couldn’t get better than that (assuming the funds were raised at ok-ish terms), so I assume your number must be in the multiple 7 figures at least!

strtup-lotto 8y ago
Using a throwaway for obv. reasons. I'm employee lower thirties in a company that recently went public with a similar valuation. Unlike gp, I am still with this company, and really like it there. Ignoring taxes, vested comes in at about 1 mill. I'll pay about half that in taxes. I have a few hundred k in unvested from subsequent awards. I've hit the start up lotto, but I will not likely pocket 7 figures from equity for a long while, assuming continual equity awards. Well, if the stock does really well, I could pocket 1M, but it needs to go up quite a bit. Honestly, I would likely have made more over these many years in aggregate at a FAANG. But I've enjoyed myself and still look forward to work every day. I'm blessed and lucky. But the startup lotto is not as good as you might think. Never count equity in a start up. Go for the salary.
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  Really appreciate your comment, these insights are very valuable.
- drizzzler 8y ago
  Why half in taxes? Isn't this a capital gain? So 15-25% fed cap gain plus about 10% California income (if even applicable)
  - ohazi 8y ago
    Alternative Minimum Tax There's a good summary here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_minimum_tax#Stock_options https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_minimum_tax#Stock_... Basically, if you are given stock options with a strike price of $small, and then the company has a liquidity event and you exercise your options when the shares are at $large, your AMT taxable income increases by $(large - small), and you'll owe taxes on it for the current year (at AMT rates), regardless of whether you sold (or were able to sell) any shares. This is in addition to the short or long term capital gains that you'll eventually owe after you actually sell shares. Apparently some people went bankrupt after the first dot-com bust because they owed absurd amounts of money in taxes but weren't able to sell any of their shares (e.g. due to employee lockup) until after their company's stock tanked. If this happens and you are able to afford the taxes, there's a mechanism to carry your losses forward and get AMT credits in future years, but the rules are hilariously complicated, and you either won't get credit for anywhere near what you paid initially, or you'll end up getting a tiny tiny fraction back for the next hundred years. It kind of sucks. There's been talk of fixing this for a long time, but I don't think it's ever gotten anywhere. *I'm not an accountant; do your own taxes.
    - deanmoriarty 8y ago
      Keep in mind you pay the AMT, so you need to have liquidity, but you will get those extra taxes paid back eventually, via AMT credits. Source: me, I have gone through it exactly and recouped ~100k of AMT I paid, in about 4 years.
  - 8y ago
xenadu02 8y ago
If I had stayed the full four years I would have vested between $600-$800k; I only vested around half that. The only people who hit low seven figures are very early employees, maybe #1-3. The exceptions are the really unique unicorns like Google or FaceBook, which print so much money everyone gets rich.
- deanmoriarty 8y ago
  Cool. Sounds like your full grant at the end would have been for ~0.1% of the company, so assuming a 50% dilution over the years, the original grant was in the ~0.2% range. It's a little bit stingy but overall (unfortunately) in line with my expectations of what employee #38 usually is granted. One more point that confirms one should really go work as employee at a startup for many reasons _except_ the financial outcome expectations. Thanks!
  - xenadu02 8y ago
    If you want to launch your own startup it is a great way to get some experience; if it pays off that also gives you a nest-egg to live on while you launch or bootstrap. If you don't want to or can't work for one of the BigTechCos then it still pays well compared to most jobs. Complaining about a six-figure payoff during an acquisition is one of the most Bay Area™️ things you can possibly do :)

frutiger 8y ago

> I can remember Ryan pestering me to take more vacation time This is a very low bar for caring for an employee.

myth_drannon 8y ago
Also vacation is a liability on the company's checkbook. Many companies stop adding vacation days after certain amount is reached to force you to take them.
xenadu02 8y ago
PlanGrid has (or had?) "unlimited" vacation time. Unlike some places they really encouraged people to use it. There was no issue with liabilities on the books since you weren't banking vacation days; it didn't make any financial difference to PlanGrid if you took 0 vacation days or 5 weeks. Ryan was trying to make sure I wasn't over-working myself and I appreciated the thought (it just so happens I was waiting to take a long Christmas vacation).