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I think you're right about the naivety. Taking the existing complexity and opaqueness and implementing it in Ethereum isn't really doable. OTOH... I do think t
by netcan 8y ago
I think you're right about the naivety. Taking the existing complexity and opaqueness and implementing it in Ethereum isn't really doable.
OTOH... I do think that private company equity/ESOP is due some changes. Companies are staying private a lot longer and there are some (like Uber) that now have >$bn ESOP schemes which could be managed in a better way.
It's hard. There are a lot of different interests at play, some competing. Purposeful obscurity and such.
You'd need to convince these companies to do things differently. In effect, any idea that "does ESOP on Ethereum" is an idea for a stock market of some sort.
Not a bad idea, but a big scary one with lots of hard problems (not technically hard) and risk. Naivety might raise your chances. The existence of blockchain is a tool for solving some of them, but Im not sure that it's a pivotal piece. Running centralised would be fine too. Ultimately, a single company originates all the contracts anyway.
If I were scheming such a scheme, I'd probably focus on things that aid fundraising.. that's really the purpose of a stock market, which is what a liquid ESOP system is.
TLDR: The problem isn't "ESOP needs to be Ethereum." The problem is "companies aren't using the regular stock market, find an alternative."
- thisisit 8y agoI think you have misunderstood what is happening now. Companies are staying private lot longer not because there is some obscurity or different interests etc. They are staying private for the same reason public companies are buying back more and more shares. And giving them another market is not going to help, naivety or not. What is going to help is tightening interest rates and rising yields. It should change the flow. But that's not going to happen in short term. And certainly not with naive blockchain options. That said, a quick google search throws up tons of places to sell your private stakes. Example - EB Exchange (source: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/uber-insiders-are-eager-to-sell-shares-but-they-cant-find-a-market.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/uber-insiders-are-eager-to-s...)
- netcan 8y agoI think we might be misunderstanding eachother. :) I have no opinion on why companies are staying private. But, since they are.. there are big, private ESOP schemes that exist. These lack liquidity. Google will return all sorts of brokers who "arrange liquidity discreetly." But, this is pretty limited, difficult to access, and comes with massive transaction costs. There's a big difference between a sanctioned and efficient way to buy and sell equity & brokers who can make a market for anything.