5 ms·

Counterpoint; I would give serious pause to hiring someone who didn't think the stock options would ever be worth anything. You have the power to effect that o

Counterpoint; I would give serious pause to hiring someone who didn't think the stock options would ever be worth anything. You have the power to effect that outcome, and giving up that power makes me a decent amount less likely to enjoy working with you.

winrid 5y ago
I worked my butt off for almost a decade under this mentality, built products that make almost 100m a year. I won't see a return probably for another 5-10 years. It's a scam, don't let people like this fool you. You can have a positive impact, yes, but put what you have control over first. Your happiness and compensation that you get twice a month.
- 2143 5y ago
  > compensation that you get twice a month. I dug into this and was surprised to learn that salaries are paid every fortnight in USA. I wonder why. Does anybody know if this is the case even in FAANG companies? Where I'm from it's paid monthly. I think I prefer that.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    Why do you prefer to wait longer to be paid?
    - LeonidasXIV 5y ago
      Because other payments are monthly (rent, ISP, mobile phone contract, subscriptions - at least in Europe), so having a constant money in <-> money out equilibrium makes sense. Unless these things are also charged every 2 weeks in the US.
      - checker 5y ago
        Plenty of US places pay twice a month, so you get the monthly budget consistency and get your money sooner.
      - beeboop 5y ago
        I think the idea in the US is that if you're having to wait an extra two weeks to get paid, you're essentially having to "float" half your monthly income all the time. This impacts people who are on the poorer end of the scale, and there's a very high percentage of Americans that don't have more than a few hundred dollars to their name.
    - 2143 5y ago
      I think it's more of a psychological thing for me. If I were to get my income every day, that would be very boring. On the other hand if I were to get my income once in 6 months, that would be horrifying. But 1 month seems to be a sweet spot. Double the amount half as often. Other utility bills come in monthly in my country (which is in Asia by the way), so that's a factor as well. But yeah, I can now kind of see the appeal of getting paid every 2 weeks.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Can’t speak for all the FAANGs but I believe it is true for several.
  - mra0 5y ago
    From my experiences, twice monthly payments are nearly universal. From what I gathered, the reason is that for a lot of employees, some states require payments to happen twice a month. For example, this is the respective CA state law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=204 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... Now, this CA law actually does not apply to most tech-employees (which will be consider "exempt employees" - which also means that they do not have to be paid overtime). But in my experiences, employers don't want to run separate payment processes for exempt/non-exempt employees - so everyone gets paid twice a month.
    - 2143 5y ago
      > some states require payments to happen twice a month I get that employers are following rules. But I wonder why there is such a rule in place.
  - dhosek 5y ago
    I don't know that I've ever had monthly. Most of the time my pay has been twice a month or every two weeks (the latter ends up with some weird scenarios at some companies where there's no benefits deduction in a 3-paycheck month). I've had a handful of jobs that paid weekly. The worst was contracting somewhere where I did weekly timesheets but was paid bimonthly. It was just after another contract agency had shortchanged me on my pay so I had to keep a manual log to make sure that all the hours I worked were paid.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  I just totally disagree. I also worked my butt off for nearly a decade, and was well compensated by stock for it, which made me substantially wealthier. I also, in that time, spent a lot of time working with people who had zero incentive to build software that solved the problems facing the company; they clocked in at 9, built their little piece, and clocked out at 5. These people were awful to work with because they refused to consider beyond their tickets, and didn't care if what they built actually connected back to the company's problem. They'd actively get upset if challenged or pushed in any way, and often cited the desire for a "good work/life balance" as the chief reason. So now, because of that experience, I look for people who are hungrier, who want asymptotic upside, and who can actually see why they're being asked to do what they're being asked to do.
  - winrid 5y ago
    You're thinking of this the wrong way! :) It sounds like you just want to work with good, conscientious, developers. This has nothing to do with equity. I never said you shouldn't try to do a good job. I said you should try to be paid fairly.
    - TameAntelope 5y ago
      Fairness is doing a lot of work here, I think getting paid fairly means you get paid based on how well the organization as a whole does. I like the equity incentive structure; rather than incentivizing time-based work (work two weeks, get paid two weeks and that's it), you make more based on how well you're able to effect outcomes at an organization level. Make the company more successful, make yourself more successful. It attracts people who want to be paid fairly for their high skill level. If you clock in/clock out, you'll make nothing. If you actually do the right work and value tangible org-wide results, you'll make way more.
      - winrid 5y ago
        No, you'll make way more if the company, market, and economy does well. I like to do a good job and work hard because I __enjoy it__. But I'm not going to work for peanuts in exchange for a chance to make more in the future unless it's my own company.
croon 5y ago
It depends. Future value is a risk, and the reward is usually granted to founders. If the stock options are offered as compensation assuming a value that amounts to a competing salary, that means you are taking on founder risk, but without founder award. Thus, either stock option compensation must be much larger than salary, or it should, as GP suggests, be counted as a potential bonus and nothing more.
thinkharderdev 5y ago
The problem is that the relationship between your outcome as a holder of ISOs and the outcome for the company as a whole is pretty opaque. You have no idea what the companies cap table looks like, what sort of liquidity preference the VCs have and what are the various ways in which you can be diluted. If you want to offer people ISOs as a bonus/inventive (i.e. pay a market salary and throw in options as an extra) then great. But if you are asking people to trade off salary for a financial instrument that can't possibly be valued with the information available to then it is kind of shitty to be upset when someone gives them an implicit value of 0.
- TameAntelope 5y ago
  What do you mean, "You have no idea what the company's cap table looks like"? Ask! I mean yeah, if you don't know those things sure, it becomes a lot harder to understand, but I've been given that information when I've asked so far, and I would pass that information along now as well.
allisdust 5y ago
Then you honestly don't understand how screwed up common stock with its multiple clauses is. Not only can employees not significantly change the liquidation outcome of a company below certain level (leadership etc), but even if they could/will and the company ends up with a great liquidation event, the rewards to employees won't be proportional. Which makes the OP's worth zero comment a good way to compare between offers (at the least, assume only a percentage of the potential profits).

winrid 5y ago

I worked my butt off for almost a decade under this mentality, built products that make almost 100m a year. I won't see a return probably for another 5-10 years. It's a scam, don't let people like this fool you. You can have a positive impact, yes, but put what you have control over first. Your happiness and compensation that you get twice a month.

2143 5y ago
> compensation that you get twice a month. I dug into this and was surprised to learn that salaries are paid every fortnight in USA. I wonder why. Does anybody know if this is the case even in FAANG companies? Where I'm from it's paid monthly. I think I prefer that.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  Why do you prefer to wait longer to be paid?
  - LeonidasXIV 5y ago
    Because other payments are monthly (rent, ISP, mobile phone contract, subscriptions - at least in Europe), so having a constant money in <-> money out equilibrium makes sense. Unless these things are also charged every 2 weeks in the US.
    - checker 5y ago
      Plenty of US places pay twice a month, so you get the monthly budget consistency and get your money sooner.
    - beeboop 5y ago
      I think the idea in the US is that if you're having to wait an extra two weeks to get paid, you're essentially having to "float" half your monthly income all the time. This impacts people who are on the poorer end of the scale, and there's a very high percentage of Americans that don't have more than a few hundred dollars to their name.
  - 2143 5y ago
    I think it's more of a psychological thing for me. If I were to get my income every day, that would be very boring. On the other hand if I were to get my income once in 6 months, that would be horrifying. But 1 month seems to be a sweet spot. Double the amount half as often. Other utility bills come in monthly in my country (which is in Asia by the way), so that's a factor as well. But yeah, I can now kind of see the appeal of getting paid every 2 weeks.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Can’t speak for all the FAANGs but I believe it is true for several.
- mra0 5y ago
  From my experiences, twice monthly payments are nearly universal. From what I gathered, the reason is that for a lot of employees, some states require payments to happen twice a month. For example, this is the respective CA state law: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=LAB&sectionNum=204 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... Now, this CA law actually does not apply to most tech-employees (which will be consider "exempt employees" - which also means that they do not have to be paid overtime). But in my experiences, employers don't want to run separate payment processes for exempt/non-exempt employees - so everyone gets paid twice a month.
  - 2143 5y ago
    > some states require payments to happen twice a month I get that employers are following rules. But I wonder why there is such a rule in place.
- dhosek 5y ago
  I don't know that I've ever had monthly. Most of the time my pay has been twice a month or every two weeks (the latter ends up with some weird scenarios at some companies where there's no benefits deduction in a 3-paycheck month). I've had a handful of jobs that paid weekly. The worst was contracting somewhere where I did weekly timesheets but was paid bimonthly. It was just after another contract agency had shortchanged me on my pay so I had to keep a manual log to make sure that all the hours I worked were paid.
TameAntelope 5y ago
I just totally disagree. I also worked my butt off for nearly a decade, and was well compensated by stock for it, which made me substantially wealthier. I also, in that time, spent a lot of time working with people who had zero incentive to build software that solved the problems facing the company; they clocked in at 9, built their little piece, and clocked out at 5. These people were awful to work with because they refused to consider beyond their tickets, and didn't care if what they built actually connected back to the company's problem. They'd actively get upset if challenged or pushed in any way, and often cited the desire for a "good work/life balance" as the chief reason. So now, because of that experience, I look for people who are hungrier, who want asymptotic upside, and who can actually see why they're being asked to do what they're being asked to do.
- winrid 5y ago
  You're thinking of this the wrong way! :) It sounds like you just want to work with good, conscientious, developers. This has nothing to do with equity. I never said you shouldn't try to do a good job. I said you should try to be paid fairly.
  - TameAntelope 5y ago
    Fairness is doing a lot of work here, I think getting paid fairly means you get paid based on how well the organization as a whole does. I like the equity incentive structure; rather than incentivizing time-based work (work two weeks, get paid two weeks and that's it), you make more based on how well you're able to effect outcomes at an organization level. Make the company more successful, make yourself more successful. It attracts people who want to be paid fairly for their high skill level. If you clock in/clock out, you'll make nothing. If you actually do the right work and value tangible org-wide results, you'll make way more.
    - winrid 5y ago
      No, you'll make way more if the company, market, and economy does well. I like to do a good job and work hard because I __enjoy it__. But I'm not going to work for peanuts in exchange for a chance to make more in the future unless it's my own company.

croon 5y ago

It depends. Future value is a risk, and the reward is usually granted to founders. If the stock options are offered as compensation assuming a value that amounts to a competing salary, that means you are taking on founder risk, but without founder award. Thus, either stock option compensation must be much larger than salary, or it should, as GP suggests, be counted as a potential bonus and nothing more.

thinkharderdev 5y ago

The problem is that the relationship between your outcome as a holder of ISOs and the outcome for the company as a whole is pretty opaque. You have no idea what the companies cap table looks like, what sort of liquidity preference the VCs have and what are the various ways in which you can be diluted. If you want to offer people ISOs as a bonus/inventive (i.e. pay a market salary and throw in options as an extra) then great. But if you are asking people to trade off salary for a financial instrument that can't possibly be valued with the information available to then it is kind of shitty to be upset when someone gives them an implicit value of 0.

TameAntelope 5y ago
What do you mean, "You have no idea what the company's cap table looks like"? Ask! I mean yeah, if you don't know those things sure, it becomes a lot harder to understand, but I've been given that information when I've asked so far, and I would pass that information along now as well.

allisdust 5y ago

Then you honestly don't understand how screwed up common stock with its multiple clauses is. Not only can employees not significantly change the liquidation outcome of a company below certain level (leadership etc), but even if they could/will and the company ends up with a great liquidation event, the rewards to employees won't be proportional. Which makes the OP's worth zero comment a good way to compare between offers (at the least, assume only a percentage of the potential profits).