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This comment is so horribly wrong that it's hard to know where to start. 1. "Doing accounts is not crucial". Um, yes it is. Doing accounts is very, very import

This comment is so horribly wrong that it's hard to know where to start. 1. "Doing accounts is not crucial". Um, yes it is. Doing accounts is very, very important. They are a way of understanding the truth of your business, keeping your cash under control, satisfying legal obligations. 2. "If they pay a normal salary for an accountant then any accountant could just take that job and replace me". People are not interchangeable. A good accountant (one who is competent at their job) is your table stakes, after that you have to consider how well that person works with others and how they contribute to the culture of the company. A start up is not about the visionaries or engineers it's about an entire team that makes a company grow and work well together. Viewing an accountant is not contributing to the company culture is not just plain dumb. 3. Also, accounting is way more than just filling in a spreadsheet. When you look at the effect of AR and AP on the business you quickly realize that this stuff matters. 4. Everyone in a startup could go somewhere else. And everyone is taking some level of risk (e.g. they could have gone to a more stable company that provided better long term job prospects). Everyone deserves to participate in the risk/reward. So, reward people that you want to stick around at the company. Give everyone some equity, given everyone some upside. A business owner who sees someone like an accountant as a drone doing a job for pay is missing out on the larger picture of building a healthy company for the staff and getting the best from that person.

dustinmoris 7y ago
People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are. Accountants are not being treated as drones. Whether you think their importance is extremely crucial in an early startup or less crucial it doesn't matter, because all of that is taken into account when paying them a fair wage. That is de facto the definition of fair. So nobody needs to feel offended. You deliver a great job and we pay you a great salary according to market rates and your experience. This is how the world works. If a coffee fetcher or accountant would come to a startup owner and say I want a piece of your company for making you coffee or filing your tax returns then they better back up why the business owner will not just ask someone else to do it at this point. It's not that they don't value their contribution, but it's just not a reason to give away a piece of your ownership of your own company where you've put blood and sweat into it. However, if a subject matter expert comes to me with the same request, and the market is such that there's already very little people of that qualification available anyway, and their contributions are seen as make or break the company, then the conversatoin will certainly be very different. This is just the free market, no matter how you feel about this, it won't change. There's obviously the argument that the free market doesn't serve us well, but that's a different conversation and out of this context here.
- jgrahamc 7y ago
  I think you miss my point that the accountant is part of your team. They are doing more than just the job of accounting and help build the company culture. The culture, teamwork etc. are intangibles that will make a big long term difference. You are certainly within your rights to decide to keep all the equity to a small number of people but you'll be building a very different company than one I would want to work for. For example, I am very happy that my Executive Assistant has options in my company. She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.
  - dustinmoris 7y ago
    > She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me. So why don't you give her that upside? As a business owner you can pay her whatever you would like her to see earn one day. Just do it, there's no inherent reason why equity has to be given away. Of course if you prefer to pay her a promise of maybe one day cashing out, but equally not cashing out at all, then I wonder if you really value her contributions today as much as you make it sound here. Honestly, people can run amazing companies and treat their employees really really well from day one, not one day when they win the lottery. EDIT: BTW congrats on the IPO!
    - somebadguy 7y ago
      Sighs you're just an emotionally stunted asshole. Please fuck off
- DanBC 7y ago
  > People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are Why doesn't this apply to directors?
huhtenberg 7y ago
Having reliable employees is golden, I doubt anyone argues with that. The argument goes is that an average office hand, a janitor, a driver (or an accounts receivable clerk for that matter) will not be a critical loss for the company regardless of how good they are at their job. Hence no inherent need to try and retain them as hard as those in executive and technical positions. You can certainly sprinkle some options on them to try and make them feel good, but you should really consider how receiving 0.005% of a company would really feel for them.

dustinmoris 7y ago

People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are. Accountants are not being treated as drones. Whether you think their importance is extremely crucial in an early startup or less crucial it doesn't matter, because all of that is taken into account when paying them a fair wage. That is de facto the definition of fair. So nobody needs to feel offended. You deliver a great job and we pay you a great salary according to market rates and your experience. This is how the world works. If a coffee fetcher or accountant would come to a startup owner and say I want a piece of your company for making you coffee or filing your tax returns then they better back up why the business owner will not just ask someone else to do it at this point. It's not that they don't value their contribution, but it's just not a reason to give away a piece of your ownership of your own company where you've put blood and sweat into it. However, if a subject matter expert comes to me with the same request, and the market is such that there's already very little people of that qualification available anyway, and their contributions are seen as make or break the company, then the conversatoin will certainly be very different. This is just the free market, no matter how you feel about this, it won't change. There's obviously the argument that the free market doesn't serve us well, but that's a different conversation and out of this context here.

jgrahamc 7y ago
I think you miss my point that the accountant is part of your team. They are doing more than just the job of accounting and help build the company culture. The culture, teamwork etc. are intangibles that will make a big long term difference. You are certainly within your rights to decide to keep all the equity to a small number of people but you'll be building a very different company than one I would want to work for. For example, I am very happy that my Executive Assistant has options in my company. She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.
- dustinmoris 7y ago
  > She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me. So why don't you give her that upside? As a business owner you can pay her whatever you would like her to see earn one day. Just do it, there's no inherent reason why equity has to be given away. Of course if you prefer to pay her a promise of maybe one day cashing out, but equally not cashing out at all, then I wonder if you really value her contributions today as much as you make it sound here. Honestly, people can run amazing companies and treat their employees really really well from day one, not one day when they win the lottery. EDIT: BTW congrats on the IPO!
  - somebadguy 7y ago
    Sighs you're just an emotionally stunted asshole. Please fuck off
DanBC 7y ago
> People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are Why doesn't this apply to directors?

huhtenberg 7y ago

Having reliable employees is golden, I doubt anyone argues with that. The argument goes is that an average office hand, a janitor, a driver (or an accounts receivable clerk for that matter) will not be a critical loss for the company regardless of how good they are at their job. Hence no inherent need to try and retain them as hard as those in executive and technical positions. You can certainly sprinkle some options on them to try and make them feel good, but you should really consider how receiving 0.005% of a company would really feel for them.