11 ms·
Facebook CTO Bret Taylor Departs (For Start-Ups Unknown)
- zerostar07 14y agoI always thought he was wasting his talent in there. I mean it's a big platform and everything, but he basically took an existing API and converted it to REST (the "open graph" etc).
- ryguytilidie 14y agoI think you forgot money.
- ExpiredLink 14y agoI guess a Facebook CTO has better things to do than creating a 'REST' Api.
- csmeder 14y agoWill this likely mean he is giving up large amounts of stock options? Or is it likely most of his stock options have vested?
- coreygoodie 14y agoI couldn't think of any scenario - unless there was something profoundly personal/family oriented going on - where someone in his position would leave before they have vested.
- ChuckMcM 14y agoI had the good fortune of joining Sun the day the Monday after they went public. There were certainly people who left 180 days later, even though they had unvested pre-IPO stock, because the return on their vested stock was 'enough' for the next stage of their life. There was also a clue in their S-1 [1] where his name is not included in the 'executive compensation' section, generally that is a sign that either he won't be continuing on with the company going forward (likely case) or that if he quit it would not materially affect the company (hence not of interest in the prospectus) Given that he's been there 3 years out of four, has a C level position, and all of the other C level jobs have multiple millions of shares, lets give him a 'lowball' grant of 4M shares. So 3/4 are vested and that is 3M shares. So FB is currently $30/share but lets say he sells all 3M and pays 50% in taxes. Lets be even more pessimistic and say that his sale pushes the price down to $25, that is 1.5M shares @ $25 that he pockets free and clear. So $37.5M in the bank. Perhaps he did this math and said, "You know, I've got lots of things I want to do and that chunk of money would give me the freedom to do it until I die." [1] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000119312512034517/d287954ds1.htm#toc287954_13 http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001193125120...
- moreorless 14y agoDon't forget he still has to pay for the stocks.
- bmelton 14y agoThat's a cashless transaction. They just deduct whatever requisite amount from his payout.
- moreorless 14y agoThe point was that he still needed to add the strike price to the calculation.
- pclark 14y agoYou would be very very surprised at how common this is. Lots of people leave 50% thru vesting; it can be remarkably demoralizing if you're of the entrepreneurial mindset to work for four years in a large organization.
- BarkMore 14y agoBecause vesting periods are usually four years and he joined Facebook three years ago, he's giving up at most 1/4 of his stock related compensation. Because Taylor joined Facebook through an acquisition, it's possible that his vesting is shorter than four years. He probably has restricted stock units and common stock with a buyback provision. As far as I know, Facebook stopped granting options before Taylor joined Facebook.
- chris123 14y agoNot if he negotiated properly coming in, which I suspect he did given this quote: “I had always been upfront with Mark that I eventually wanted to do another start-up.” If he was upfront, then that means before he came on board. He probably negotiated a condition that if he stayed through the IPO that xyz would happen (vesting, whatever else). He carried out his end of the deal, therefore xyz happend. Everybody wins (except those who bought FB on the IPO (or on one of its first 12 days as a public company).
- mikeryan 14y agoI believe Bret entered facebook via the acquisition of FriendFeed and any millions hes making out of Facebook likely came via that and any golden parachute he had (which I'm sure he hit considering he's been there 3 years) Also a lot of C level execs work on different vesting schedule and get allocated shares as bonuses. The whole point being this question is largely moot on a lot of levels any stock left on the table is probably a very small portion of what he was bound to make on the IPO via a standard option vesting.
- zbruhnke 14y agopb ... you staying at YC or heading out with Brett? lol
- chris123 14y agoJapanese proverb: "With the fall of one leaf we know that autumn has come to the world." Interpretation: More departures coming soon.
- eco 14y agoBut there is an old greek proverb (Aristotle actually) that says "One swallow does not a summer make". What am I to make of this? I don't know who to trust anymore.
- cpeterso 14y agoI guess it depends on which season Facebook is in now. I vote for summer.
- bira 14y agoFirst day of summer or last day of summer?
- mikejarema 14y agoWinter is coming
- troymc 14y ago"If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" - Percy Bysshe Shelley
- eternalban 14y agoOnly the living rise again for a new day. Funny business apparitions need not apply. -unknown
- sandieman 14y agoreddit level of depth here
- napolux 14y agoHey Bret, fix the Friendfeed password recovery!
- ddol 14y agoThere were $256.9m of trades on FB stock ~14m49s before he announced the story on his timeline. Two trades of 4,287,969 shares. What is likely to have happened here? Did an institutional investor get wind of the story early? If so, why did the share price jump up?
- bertil 14y agoMost likely the Financial department processing his stock—I have little clue of how vesting options works on that side, but I'm assuming they owe him something priced along his departure.
- malandrew 14y agoIf your departure from a company is a material fact by virtue of the position you hold, does it make it insider trading to dump your own shares in a company you are leaving?
- phil 14y agoI'm pretty sure the answer to your question is yes. Typically, if you're in a position where you'll often have material non-public info you need to create a trading plan in advance, or otherwise remove your ability to trade the company based on all the secret stuff you're always going to be knowing. Look at it that way and for the CTO of a large public co., their own departure is just going to be the last of many, many pieces of info make it problematic for them to trade the stock.
- veyron 14y agoHe got his FU money.
- imrehg 14y agoI guess now they will have to change this tutorial of querying one's friends in the Facebook Query Language [0]: Determine whether the currently logged in user is friends with another user, Bret Taylor (Try this query): SELECT uid1, uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me() AND uid2 = 220439 [0]: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fql/friend/ https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fql/friend/
- ivankirigin 14y agoBret is a badass. Congrats and good luck!
- troymc 14y agoIt's interesting to see that Cory Ondreijka is taking over mobile at Facebook. He was one of the early employees at Linden Lab (makers of Second Life) and was best known (to SL residents) as the coder who created the Linden Scripting Language. The story goes that he created it quickly, like over a weekend. (It did get improved after that though!)
- didip 14y agoAll I have to say is: Thank you for co-creating Tornado. I hope more good things will come out from him.
- known 14y agoWhat is the source of income for FB apart from advertisements?