4 ms·

If you go public, there are a bunch of requirements on you as a company. you have to regularly tell everyone your P&L and a bunch of other things Stripe would r

If you go public, there are a bunch of requirements on you as a company. you have to regularly tell everyone your P&L and a bunch of other things Stripe would rather not tell anyone.

hgsgm 4y ago
And you have similar requirements if employees exercise and maybe sell on secondary market and you end up with >2000 shareholders
scarface74 4y ago
And why would I as a potential employee not be hesitant to work for a company that paid me using “equity” unless I knew the business was sound?
- zamnos 4y ago
  You should be be hesitant! But not everyone wants to work at a large public company and deal with all the bureaucracy that entails, or want to work somewhere risky for the chance to make it big.
  - scarface74 4y ago
    We are talking about Stripe. It’s not exactly a small startup. The “chance” of a startup making it big is infinitesimal. First only 1 in 10 startups “succeed”. And “success” means that the VCs didn’t lose money. By the time you join a late stage startup where some of the risk of completely failure are derisked, the chance of outsized gains are also lower. Besides, then we get back a private company, every year I work without the company going public, I’m even less diversified because I am more dependent on the company succeeding. In a public company, I can derisk every six months. And then there is the issue that Stripe employees have to pay taxes but they couldn’t sell their equity to pay for it. In a public company, you can choose to sell shares to cover taxes.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - habitue 4y ago
      Yeah, everyone should think about what kind of company they want to work for. Maybe you want a big name on your resume, a couple years at stripe might not be a bad idea. Similarly, if they get a bad anti-employee rep, they'll suffer in hiring. The company needs to make concessions to avoid that fate

If you go public, there are a bunch of requirements on you as a company. you have to regularly tell everyone your P&L and a bunch of other things Stripe would rather not tell anyone.

hgsgm 4y ago

And you have similar requirements if employees exercise and maybe sell on secondary market and you end up with >2000 shareholders

scarface74 4y ago

And why would I as a potential employee not be hesitant to work for a company that paid me using “equity” unless I knew the business was sound?

zamnos 4y ago
You should be be hesitant! But not everyone wants to work at a large public company and deal with all the bureaucracy that entails, or want to work somewhere risky for the chance to make it big.
- scarface74 4y ago
  We are talking about Stripe. It’s not exactly a small startup. The “chance” of a startup making it big is infinitesimal. First only 1 in 10 startups “succeed”. And “success” means that the VCs didn’t lose money. By the time you join a late stage startup where some of the risk of completely failure are derisked, the chance of outsized gains are also lower. Besides, then we get back a private company, every year I work without the company going public, I’m even less diversified because I am more dependent on the company succeeding. In a public company, I can derisk every six months. And then there is the issue that Stripe employees have to pay taxes but they couldn’t sell their equity to pay for it. In a public company, you can choose to sell shares to cover taxes.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - habitue 4y ago
    Yeah, everyone should think about what kind of company they want to work for. Maybe you want a big name on your resume, a couple years at stripe might not be a bad idea. Similarly, if they get a bad anti-employee rep, they'll suffer in hiring. The company needs to make concessions to avoid that fate