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According to this article, stock was valued internally at $49/share in 2016, so anyone joining in the last three years will not have enjoyed any sort of rocket-

According to this article, stock was valued internally at $49/share in 2016, so anyone joining in the last three years will not have enjoyed any sort of rocket-ship growth. https://news.yahoo.com/uber-employees-may-not-partying-151719950.html https://news.yahoo.com/uber-employees-may-not-partying-15171...

msoad 7y ago
We don't know if they did a split before going public or not.
- yellowstuff 7y ago
  Matt Levine seems pretty confident that the $48.77 price from private transactions is directly comparable to the $45 IPO price, and he knows his stuff, so I think it's safe to assume he's right. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-10/the-unicorn-worriers-weren-t-wrong https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-10/the-un...
intuitionist 7y ago
If you’re joining a $60 billion company with thousands of employees expecting rocket-ship growth, that’s kind of on you, I think. You wouldn’t expect that from a public company; why would you from a similarly sized company that just happens to be pre-IPO?
- marnett 7y ago
  Amazon in 2016 was $502 a share, it is $1900 now Microsoft in 2016 was $51, $127 now Facebook was $97, $189 now We're not even talking about rocket-ship growth here. We are talking about option strike prices losing money in one of the most favorable economic time periods where massive, healthy public business did have monstrous growth. I would have at least expected price parity with other large companies - even that assumption would have been wrong.
  - JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
    That can be a tricky comparison to make over time, due to share splits and merges. Apple has split 4 times, for example. Taking these numbers at face value, I can't know if they account for it.
    - marnett 7y ago
      Within the timeframe I listed [2016-2018] none of the companies I listed performed a stock split. Neither did Apple. Apple's most recent stock split was 2014.
  - intuitionist 7y ago
    Expecting price parity with other large companies, okay. But the expectation in 2016 wasn’t for Facebook etc. to be at today’s prices in 2019, or they would have been priced higher then.
    - usaar333 7y ago
      Even parity with cash. Investing in tech (say vgt) has had 90% returns over the past three years.
  - pavlov 7y ago
    The Silicon Valley giants don't do options anymore, but RSUs (restricted stock units) which are simply share awards. There's no strike price to worry about, but of course it's a bit of a disappointment if you expected Uber to be a $100B company out of the gate. Still, Uber employees will be happy that they can finally sell those RSU awards (in six months when the lockup expires).
    - 8ytecoder 7y ago
      I can’t speak for sure but that’s a little unlikely. RSUs are taxed on vesting. Bad idea when employees can’t sell a portion of it to pay the tax.
- kingnothing 7y ago
  It's very reasonable for employees over the past 3 years to expect growth. Over the past 3 years: FB is up 60% AAPL is up 98% AMZN is up 261% NFLX is up 363% GOOG is up 60%
  - zsiddique 7y ago
    You left off TEAM (Atlassian) up 199% over the past 3 years.
- MAGZine 7y ago
  How much has Google grown in the last three years? Or Facebook? Or Netflix? Or Atlassian? Uber not growing in value in three years, in the hottest economy, is a disaster
  - swypych 7y ago
    I suspect you mean stock price growth only, I think the hype of Uber is now catching up with them. Uber most definitely grew over the last three years.
- akchin 7y ago
  It shouldn't matter a lot since I am 99% sure that they were issuing RSUs at that time and not options. So the strike price based on 3-years ago valuation is not relevant. Also, I am sure the number of RSUs you got at Uber should have been more than the RSUs at FAANG, to compensate for some of the risks. Now, if an individual Uber employee came out ahead, vs. having joined a FAANG really depends on the offers they had.
  - Blackthorn 7y ago
    It matters a ton. You get your rsu grant sized based on the stock price at the time of the grant, just like options. If that price goes up, you make money... Just like options.
    - ytpete 7y ago
      It's not just like options though, is the point they were making - if the price goes down, you still make money with RSUs, just not as much.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> anyone joining in the last three years will not have enjoyed any sort of rocket-ship growth Uber was also somewhat unique among unicorns in uniformly blocking its employees from selling shares on the secondary markets.
- synlatexc 7y ago
  I believe most companies do not allow this.
  - JumpCrisscross 7y ago
    > most companies do not allow this As someone who does work in the space, no, most companies permit transfers. There are mechanisms in place to reasonably limit them, e.g. rights of first refusal and transfer fees. But Uber was unique in the degree to which they restricted transfers.
- mfatica 7y ago
  That's not unique in any way

msoad 7y ago

We don't know if they did a split before going public or not.

yellowstuff 7y ago
Matt Levine seems pretty confident that the $48.77 price from private transactions is directly comparable to the $45 IPO price, and he knows his stuff, so I think it's safe to assume he's right. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-10/the-unicorn-worriers-weren-t-wrong https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-05-10/the-un...

intuitionist 7y ago

If you’re joining a $60 billion company with thousands of employees expecting rocket-ship growth, that’s kind of on you, I think. You wouldn’t expect that from a public company; why would you from a similarly sized company that just happens to be pre-IPO?

marnett 7y ago
Amazon in 2016 was $502 a share, it is $1900 now Microsoft in 2016 was $51, $127 now Facebook was $97, $189 now We're not even talking about rocket-ship growth here. We are talking about option strike prices losing money in one of the most favorable economic time periods where massive, healthy public business did have monstrous growth. I would have at least expected price parity with other large companies - even that assumption would have been wrong.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  That can be a tricky comparison to make over time, due to share splits and merges. Apple has split 4 times, for example. Taking these numbers at face value, I can't know if they account for it.
  - marnett 7y ago
    Within the timeframe I listed [2016-2018] none of the companies I listed performed a stock split. Neither did Apple. Apple's most recent stock split was 2014.
- intuitionist 7y ago
  Expecting price parity with other large companies, okay. But the expectation in 2016 wasn’t for Facebook etc. to be at today’s prices in 2019, or they would have been priced higher then.
  - usaar333 7y ago
    Even parity with cash. Investing in tech (say vgt) has had 90% returns over the past three years.
- pavlov 7y ago
  The Silicon Valley giants don't do options anymore, but RSUs (restricted stock units) which are simply share awards. There's no strike price to worry about, but of course it's a bit of a disappointment if you expected Uber to be a $100B company out of the gate. Still, Uber employees will be happy that they can finally sell those RSU awards (in six months when the lockup expires).
  - 8ytecoder 7y ago
    I can’t speak for sure but that’s a little unlikely. RSUs are taxed on vesting. Bad idea when employees can’t sell a portion of it to pay the tax.
kingnothing 7y ago
It's very reasonable for employees over the past 3 years to expect growth. Over the past 3 years: FB is up 60% AAPL is up 98% AMZN is up 261% NFLX is up 363% GOOG is up 60%
- zsiddique 7y ago
  You left off TEAM (Atlassian) up 199% over the past 3 years.
MAGZine 7y ago
How much has Google grown in the last three years? Or Facebook? Or Netflix? Or Atlassian? Uber not growing in value in three years, in the hottest economy, is a disaster
- swypych 7y ago
  I suspect you mean stock price growth only, I think the hype of Uber is now catching up with them. Uber most definitely grew over the last three years.
akchin 7y ago
It shouldn't matter a lot since I am 99% sure that they were issuing RSUs at that time and not options. So the strike price based on 3-years ago valuation is not relevant. Also, I am sure the number of RSUs you got at Uber should have been more than the RSUs at FAANG, to compensate for some of the risks. Now, if an individual Uber employee came out ahead, vs. having joined a FAANG really depends on the offers they had.
- Blackthorn 7y ago
  It matters a ton. You get your rsu grant sized based on the stock price at the time of the grant, just like options. If that price goes up, you make money... Just like options.
  - ytpete 7y ago
    It's not just like options though, is the point they were making - if the price goes down, you still make money with RSUs, just not as much.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> anyone joining in the last three years will not have enjoyed any sort of rocket-ship growth Uber was also somewhat unique among unicorns in uniformly blocking its employees from selling shares on the secondary markets.

synlatexc 7y ago
I believe most companies do not allow this.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > most companies do not allow this As someone who does work in the space, no, most companies permit transfers. There are mechanisms in place to reasonably limit them, e.g. rights of first refusal and transfer fees. But Uber was unique in the degree to which they restricted transfers.
mfatica 7y ago
That's not unique in any way