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A great attempt to dodge vesting schedules and escape doling out severance. Even if they convince many engineers to quit willingly, one presumes that the next s
by xyzzy_plugh 4y ago
A great attempt to dodge vesting schedules and escape doling out severance. Even if they convince many engineers to quit willingly, one presumes that the next step is rounds of layoffs with cause.
California is at-will, but notoriously anal regarding mass-layoffs. My serious question is, regardless of with or without cause, surely some employment attorneys are licking their lips at the stack of prospective cases they're about to have, right?
If I was a Twitter engineer, I'd be trying to figure out how to maximize my severance package right about now.
- blindriver 4y agoTwitter is a private company now. There are no more stocks to vest, so the idea that this is to dodge vesting schedules doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
- kalabilla 4y agoPrivate companies have stocks. They are just on traded on exchange
- djbusby 4y agoI think you have a typo.
- blindriver 4y agoNot Twitter. They all got bought on Friday by Elon. There's no way they would have time to create the necessary legal structure by Tuesday to be able to allocate shares and even to give them to employees.
- 7e 4y ago
- cookingrobot 4y agoAccording to blind, vesting schedules are converted to cash grants on the same schedule. So essentially there is still vesting, and no acceleration for regular employees. Curious to hear if anyone knows otherwise. https://www.teamblind.com/post/Twitter-Accelerated-Vesting-LsxqeYuK https://www.teamblind.com/post/Twitter-Accelerated-Vesting-L...
- MrMan 4y agoanother reason I think taking twitter private immediately was a wide choice
- hamandcheese 4y agoYes, according to those I know at twitter this is the case.
- kweingar 4y agoUntil recently I worked at a private company with a stock vesting plan.
- blindriver 4y agoCompletely irrelevant. Twitter just got bought. There are no shares anymore and Twitter hasn't had time to go through the process to create and distribute them.
- kweingar 4y agoThat’s true. Maybe I misread your comment, but it sounded like you were saying that the reason there cannot be stock grants is because Twitter is private. The reason that there cannot be stock grants is because Elon happens to own all the shares, not because Twitter is private.
- HWR_14 4y agoThe employees are vesting the cashed out value (at $54.20/share) of whatever stock they were vesting as of when the deal closed. Although SpaceX apparently has vesting stock in a way that keeps the company private. Some of the text messages Elon sent that were published alluded to that.
- adastra22 4y agoThe company just buys back the shares. It’s essentially a cash bonus.
- HWR_14 4y agoFor SpaceX? I knew the company offered to buy back the shares at regular intervals. I am disappointed to learn they are mandatory.
- adastra22 4y agoI didn't mean to imply that. I think you can keep the shares. But there are limits to how many non-insider (e.g. former employees), non-accredited investors a company can have before it is required to go public. For this reason a lot of companies do try to make it mandatory and/or offer sweet deals to buy the shares back upon leaving the company.
- HWR_14 4y ago> there are limits to how many non-insider (e.g. former employees), non-accredited investors a company can have before it is required to go public. I thought that limit was some trivial number. I thought the much larger number (2,000 IIRC) was made up of investors who were either insiders or accredited investors.
- adastra22 4y ago500. Although I thought the JOBS act increased that number to 2500, but my google-fu is failing me. In any case, once you have that many shareholders on record, you HAVE to go public. This is what forced Google and Facebook to eventually go public. Companies often get around this by not doing everything possible to prevent an employee from becoming a shareholder on record. E.g. settling option contracts for cash.
- jxf 4y agoThis doesn't make sense. There are certainly options and stock to vest; every pre-IPO startup employee in the world knows about the four-year vesting schedule.
- blindriver 4y agoIt makes total sense. Twitter was just bought on Friday. All existing shares are now owned by Elon. There are no private shares of Twitter yet, and it won't be ready to distribute by Nov 1, which is Tuesday.
- kweingar 4y ago> If I was a Twitter engineer, I'd be trying to figure out how to maximize my severance package right about now. Absolutely. This is how I would spend every minute of my workdays until the eventual layoff. It’s a degrading experience for sure, but it could pay off big.
- ergocoder 4y agoWhat are some strategies for this? I can't think of any and would have been a sitting duck.
- giantrobot 4y agoGet everything in writing. If someone wants an in-person meeting with no notes taken send an e-mail to them afterwards confirming what was said in the meeting. That way you have a paper trail of what was said/known and when.
- itake 4y agoDo you have more context as to why this is important? Is this for all project work, or is this for meetings discussing severance?
- sbarre 4y agoIf your employer is trying to fire you "with cause" then they will be producing a paper trail of their own, to justify their decision. Their paper trail will be very one-sided, of course. You will need your own paper trail to demonstrate your side of things, either as part of the severance meeting - if you even get the opportunity - or after you get fired if you choose to make a claim against it.
- giantrobot 4y agoThis is advice if you think your employer is going to try firing you for cause so they don't need to pay a severance. When they're trying to do that your manager will try to have more face to face meetings so none of the discussions are recorded. Then they will send some e-mails to their manager with some colored description of what took place. For instance they'll say your productivity dropped or you're mismanaging your time because you didn't work on project A but in your one-on-one they explicitly told you to stop working on project A and instead focus on B. When it comes time to drop the hammer they'll have one-sided documentation of your performance. If they're start talking about your performance definitely follow up with an e-mail about what metrics they are using to measure performance and pressure them to give you a path for correction. If you don't have any documentation it will be easier for them to fire you and offer you nothing. If you have a bunch of documentation, especially if they know you have it, they'll be more likely to offer a severance. A wrongful termination suit will likely cost them more than your severance, especially if you have a lot of documentation of your work and performance. Also remember HR exists to protect the company, they don't give a shit about you beyond whatever the legal requirement is for giving a shit. Don't sign anything without reading it carefully.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
- tannedNerd 4y agoThis reeks of the arrogance someone who has never gone through recession layoffs. Sometimes your division gets slashed for no reason other then your vp wasn’t slightly more persuasive. When investors want to see cuts, lots of good people end up fired for no reason other than bad luck. Trying to time a parachute into a not super terrible market isn’t the worst idea. Plus usually the first and second round are the most generous. As belt tightening gets worse and the PR isn’t as bad expect worse benefits.
- cole-k 4y agoYeah lol, it definitely has the same vibes I see from people that are like: "Corporations aren't people, they're capitalistic entities. They don't owe you anything" while also turning around and saying "how greedy of you to act in your own self interest and not to the benefit of your company!!"
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoI've never been laid off but my productivity would definitely tank if I knew half of us were getting cut. I think I'm pretty good, but not above getting the axe. Which is also why I choose my teams/projects wisely because a lot of them disappear
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
- kredd 4y agoWhat’s your point? It’s an organizational failure for over-hiring and/or not having enough work, not the employees fault. Good for them for making the money with minimal effort.
- 4y ago
- rendall 4y ago> I'd be trying to figure out how to maximize my severance package... How would one go about doing that? Is there a way to have influence on that?
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoi don't know, but quit vs fire probably makes a difference.
- rendall 4y agoQuit vs fire vs layoff is the strategy of deciding to have a severance or not having one.
- pclmulqdq 4y agoFire = chance of lawsuit Layoff = severance (to avoid the lawsuit) Quit = neither It's obvious which one Musk would prefer.
- Markoff 4y agosometimes quitting voluntarily can give you better severance than forced layoff
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoHow does that work? Do they make an open offer to everyone if they quit they get $x?