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Separate of what did or didn’t happen here, I hope more companies crack the secondary market puzzle. The current environment really sucks for startup employee l

Separate of what did or didn’t happen here, I hope more companies crack the secondary market puzzle. The current environment really sucks for startup employee liquidity and might be going on for a lot longer.

nico 3y ago
Yes. Btw, what are someone’s potential liquidity alternatives for ISO options in profitable private startups? What’s an alternative to Carta’s solution?
- granshaw 3y ago
  I know there’s equityzen and probably other marketplaces, but I think the main issue is most even late stage startups ban secondary trading This knowledge might be outdated, I quit that game and opted to join public companies since a couple years ago. Yes it’s an upfront risk that employees take when joining but man does it not also feel incredibly one sided and smelly, esp the later stage the startup gets
jedberg 3y ago
> I hope more companies crack the secondary market puzzle. This feels like the wrong solution. I mean, the reason we need a secondary market is because companies are going public much later than the used to. Why? Because the government made it a lot more onerous to go public. Why? Because companies were abusing the process to enrich insiders. If we make the secondary market easier, we'll just be right back where we were, and then the government would probably just step in and make it onerous again. I think the actual solution here is to make going public easier again while addressing the loopholes for abuse so that companies can go public sooner and everyone can get liquidity sooner.
- granshaw 3y ago
  From reading your first paragraph I thought you were heading to an opposite conclusion, but yes, completely agree that we should make it easier to go public
- jgilias 3y ago
  And insiders found ways to enrich themselves even while working with the onerous process. Remember the SPAC craze? Another example of where the honest people get penalized with a heavy process in the name of zero fraud.

nico 3y ago

Yes. Btw, what are someone’s potential liquidity alternatives for ISO options in profitable private startups? What’s an alternative to Carta’s solution?

granshaw 3y ago
I know there’s equityzen and probably other marketplaces, but I think the main issue is most even late stage startups ban secondary trading This knowledge might be outdated, I quit that game and opted to join public companies since a couple years ago. Yes it’s an upfront risk that employees take when joining but man does it not also feel incredibly one sided and smelly, esp the later stage the startup gets

jedberg 3y ago

> I hope more companies crack the secondary market puzzle. This feels like the wrong solution. I mean, the reason we need a secondary market is because companies are going public much later than the used to. Why? Because the government made it a lot more onerous to go public. Why? Because companies were abusing the process to enrich insiders. If we make the secondary market easier, we'll just be right back where we were, and then the government would probably just step in and make it onerous again. I think the actual solution here is to make going public easier again while addressing the loopholes for abuse so that companies can go public sooner and everyone can get liquidity sooner.

granshaw 3y ago
From reading your first paragraph I thought you were heading to an opposite conclusion, but yes, completely agree that we should make it easier to go public
jgilias 3y ago
And insiders found ways to enrich themselves even while working with the onerous process. Remember the SPAC craze? Another example of where the honest people get penalized with a heavy process in the name of zero fraud.