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Less shareholders, less problems. You don't want to have to track down a bunch of short-term employees from four years ago when making corporate decisions. (Y
by gyardley 16y ago
Less shareholders, less problems. You don't want to have to track down a bunch of short-term employees from four years ago when making corporate decisions.
(Yes, I know the common generally has no rights to speak of, but sometimes you want to get the consent of everyone just to cover your butt, especially when things go bad.)
- mmt 16y agoHow big a deal is this? That is, how much does it cost? How many short-term employees does a typical startup tend to have? What percentage of short-term employees exercise if they leave? Are there any statistics, or does everyone blindly use a year-long cliff?
- gyardley 16y agoIt can be a huge deal if some disgruntled shareholder causes legal problems. Binary outcome - most of the time, no consequences, occasionally, massive ones. No stats for you but short-term employees seem pretty common. I've had them, and I've been one. I bet you've left jobs before a year was up as well. Zero percent of short-term employees exercise their options when they leave, because they can't. But options are really cheap prior to a Series A, so I imagine a lot of the early people would if they could. 'Blindly' is the wrong word for going with an established industry standard. Job candidates and investors both understand it and expect it - you don't have to waste cycles thinking about it or explaining it. Startups are fussy enough as it is, no point messing with something that works.