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All employees at a startup carry substantial risk. If you're working as a customer service rep at a startup which folds, you in all likelihood don't have the co

by nimih 5y ago

All employees at a startup carry substantial risk. If you're working as a customer service rep at a startup which folds, you in all likelihood don't have the connections or financial stability that the founders and software engineers and data scientists and scrum masters have to gracefully transition to another job. If you're planning on having a kid, losing your job 3 weeks before you expected to be able to take paid parental leave is going to really throw a wrench in the works. &c &c

rocqua 5y ago
I don't like the argument I am about to make when used to attack minimum wage, but I think it applies here. When you accepted the job, you knew the terms. Those included not getting equity, and those included carrying some risk with known reward. I don't see how the owners selling retroactively makes the risk-reward balance different. Unless you consider it a risk/downside that someone else gets a windfall and you don't get to share. That seems silly to me tho. How rich someone else is does not affect how much money I need to live, with a few exceptions (inflation, friends, power dynamics in pre-existing relationships).
- ryandrake 5y ago
  > How rich someone else is does not affect how much money I need to live, with a few exceptions (inflation, friends, power dynamics in pre-existing relationships). Many people cannot afford to even own a home in the Bay Area because everyone else around is so rich. Relative wealth is important because "other rich people" drive up prices of everything, from housing, to groceries, to health care. If my salary doesn't change, but the people around me get a 10% raise, my buying power decreases.
  - rocqua 5y ago
    That holds if everyone else gets richer. It does not hold if 2 founders get richer. You barely compete with them for the same items, so it shouldn't affect your buying power at all that your founders got a windfall.
sokoloff 5y ago
That CSR’s work is worth a certain amount. The discussion is whether that amount best serves the CSR if paid all in cash or divided into a mix of cash and equity. In Mailchimp’s case, they were clear that it was all cash and no equity and I suspect that was the preference of the CSRs as well.

by nimih 5y ago

rocqua 5y ago

I don't like the argument I am about to make when used to attack minimum wage, but I think it applies here. When you accepted the job, you knew the terms. Those included not getting equity, and those included carrying some risk with known reward. I don't see how the owners selling retroactively makes the risk-reward balance different. Unless you consider it a risk/downside that someone else gets a windfall and you don't get to share. That seems silly to me tho. How rich someone else is does not affect how much money I need to live, with a few exceptions (inflation, friends, power dynamics in pre-existing relationships).

ryandrake 5y ago
> How rich someone else is does not affect how much money I need to live, with a few exceptions (inflation, friends, power dynamics in pre-existing relationships). Many people cannot afford to even own a home in the Bay Area because everyone else around is so rich. Relative wealth is important because "other rich people" drive up prices of everything, from housing, to groceries, to health care. If my salary doesn't change, but the people around me get a 10% raise, my buying power decreases.
- rocqua 5y ago
  That holds if everyone else gets richer. It does not hold if 2 founders get richer. You barely compete with them for the same items, so it shouldn't affect your buying power at all that your founders got a windfall.

sokoloff 5y ago

That CSR’s work is worth a certain amount. The discussion is whether that amount best serves the CSR if paid all in cash or divided into a mix of cash and equity. In Mailchimp’s case, they were clear that it was all cash and no equity and I suspect that was the preference of the CSRs as well.