3 ms·

Very curious how you conduct the research. I'm legitimately interested as at some point I almost accepted an offer from a company and one of my friends stopped

Very curious how you conduct the research. I'm legitimately interested as at some point I almost accepted an offer from a company and one of my friends stopped me telling me that they're PE managed. Is there an easy systematic way of finding out without having to read public filings? How do you decide? Based on the ownership shares? Board members?

motohagiography 3y ago
What's hard about reading filings that are literally public? The only barrier is english literacy, a solved problem. Crunchbase tells you any public funding rounds, and then if a PE group acquires more than something like 10% they have to make an SEC filing. (if I'm wrong about that threshold, the internet will correct me.) I should disclose that early in my career I would do job interviews recreationally on my lunch hours just to get good at them, so it's not reasonable to just use what I say as a reference, and I've done serious reading and practice on negotiation theory and a bunch of other business topics, so essentially, I look at companies like an investor when I decide to work for them. Part of that is getting a sense of what their cap table probably looks like, because that drives the incentives in the product and organization. If you need a job, take what's available, but if you are serious, look at how startups necessarily survive as a function of their runway and board structure. Brad Feld's "Venture Deals" is a good reference, as is YC's startup school library (all free online) and then maybe Jeffery Pfeffer, then DeMesquita and Smith. Then understand how your own skills get them through the incentive structures described in those books. PE creates a set of incentives in an organization that are orthogonal to startup growth, they're just different types of companies. Once you know the board structure and the cap table, the survival of every company flows from the incentives that creates, imo.
- motohagiography 3y ago
  I wasn't happy with the tone of that on a re-read. Last few sentences are good. Happy to contribute any additional details if helpful.
  - maximinus_thrax 3y ago
    Thank you for the details, stranger! I appreciate it.

motohagiography 3y ago

What's hard about reading filings that are literally public? The only barrier is english literacy, a solved problem. Crunchbase tells you any public funding rounds, and then if a PE group acquires more than something like 10% they have to make an SEC filing. (if I'm wrong about that threshold, the internet will correct me.) I should disclose that early in my career I would do job interviews recreationally on my lunch hours just to get good at them, so it's not reasonable to just use what I say as a reference, and I've done serious reading and practice on negotiation theory and a bunch of other business topics, so essentially, I look at companies like an investor when I decide to work for them. Part of that is getting a sense of what their cap table probably looks like, because that drives the incentives in the product and organization. If you need a job, take what's available, but if you are serious, look at how startups necessarily survive as a function of their runway and board structure. Brad Feld's "Venture Deals" is a good reference, as is YC's startup school library (all free online) and then maybe Jeffery Pfeffer, then DeMesquita and Smith. Then understand how your own skills get them through the incentive structures described in those books. PE creates a set of incentives in an organization that are orthogonal to startup growth, they're just different types of companies. Once you know the board structure and the cap table, the survival of every company flows from the incentives that creates, imo.

motohagiography 3y ago
I wasn't happy with the tone of that on a re-read. Last few sentences are good. Happy to contribute any additional details if helpful.
- maximinus_thrax 3y ago
  Thank you for the details, stranger! I appreciate it.