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Directly contradicts Garry Tan's post saying that all forty founding engineers got seven figure payouts from the Google acquisition: https://x.com/garrytan/stat

Directly contradicts Garry Tan's post saying that all forty founding engineers got seven figure payouts from the Google acquisition: https://x.com/garrytan/status/1947072583092052406 https://x.com/garrytan/status/1947072583092052406 Even if the OP considers the full headline number of $2.4b to be the value of the company, and taking his "1% of fair" number as truth, seven figure payouts would imply all 40 founding engineers had >4% equity which is nonsensical.

recursivecaveat 1y ago
Why would you believe extremely motivated hearsay from Garry Tan? The man is already very untrustworthy before we get into the "I heard" and conflict of interest.
ohdeargodno 1y ago
Garry Tan's job is bullshitting. Lying isn't very far from it, and he even covers his ass with "I heard". Who did you hear it from Garry, the founder that made out with all the money ? Or the other VC that made a few hundred million from the sale and stands to gain even more if the lie of "founding engineers get rewarded" is perpetuated?
b_be_building 1y ago
No, what Garry is saying DIRECTLY correlates with the outlined opportunity. For his assertion to be right, 40 people need to get paid out at least 1 million. That's 1.67% of the company or 0.04% evenly. Its not hard for me to image that up to 10% of this cap table was distributed among the 40 people.
reducesuffering 1y ago
Hilarious that the best case positive spin highlighted is 40 people cleared at least $1m, so $40m out of $2.4 billion and $240m funding. He's praising "look 2% of the payout went to people in the company". Nevermind that $1m over ~4 years is approximately the same as the differential other public tech co's pay. ($150k + equity at YC co, $350k TC at G/Amzn/FB/Uber/etc.) So when they tell everyone they should work at YC co's, they're saying they're proud when in the absolute best case scenario you make just as much as at the public co's they rail against working for. If you want to come across as genuine, directly say how much % of the payout went to employees that weren't the founders. They won't, because it's likely 3%, which correctly sounds horrible
- umeshunni 1y ago
  > the absolute best case scenario you make just as much as at the public co's they rail against working for that matches my experience working at 2 non-public venture funded companies.
michaelt 1y ago
> 40 founding engineers Forty founding engineers? Seriously? They must have a very expansive definition of founder.
- bloodyplonker22 1y ago
  "Founder" and "founding engineer" are two entirely different things. One of those phrases is a glorified substitute for "early engineer". Kind of like when you buy a "founders edition" Nvidia GPU. You are certainly not a founder of anything.
- Rexxar 1y ago
  'Founding engineer' is the new 'Vice president'
karmasimida 1y ago
Not contracting. Let’s do a simple math. Assume this employee gets 5% of the company (which is super unlikely, but let’s go with it), that is 150m for what could be worth if OpenAI deal went through. 1% of that would be 1.5m. That is still 7 figure. But this person spent 3 years in a startup, which turned out to be a unicorn and super highly successful, and he bagged a FAANG salary man pay at the end of the deal. Basically this just proved startup model for normies are completely broken, if your goal is money, don’t join a startup
- xvector 1y ago
  It's bizarre to see tech bros, YC, and megacorporations kill the startup talent pipeline that they rely on so much. Who is gonna want to work at a startup in a non-founder role after this and Scale AI? This continuing degradation of, and flagrant disregard for social norms is destructive for society.
  - notimetorelax 1y ago
    Young engineers who don’t know how this works yet.
    - anon191928 1y ago
      I will make them this then. I will inform new talent about how VC lies with puting all proof too. New website and SM coming for this
  - karmasimida 1y ago
    I think we would be back to historical norm, that startup will start falling behind in attracting talents. The founders of Windsurf had already gotten their bags, they won't have to work a single day later in their life if they don't want to. The consequences will be bared by the ecosystem. For the time being I think they are going to be OK, the labor market is employer friendly.
  - baq 1y ago
    the market doing what the market does: price discovery. yes, this is a cynical take, but so is the money in this market.
WatchDog 1y ago
Garry Tan allegedly replied to this tweet, but later deleted it https://x.com/dvassallo/status/1948635445233156239 https://x.com/dvassallo/status/1948635445233156239
ensignavenger 1y ago
It is possible that 7 figure number included the offer to join Google, and since this engineer didn't accept that offer, they would not have recieved the compensation for doing so. It sounds like Garry Yan was getting his information second hand, so it may not include all of the context.

recursivecaveat 1y ago

Why would you believe extremely motivated hearsay from Garry Tan? The man is already very untrustworthy before we get into the "I heard" and conflict of interest.

ohdeargodno 1y ago

Garry Tan's job is bullshitting. Lying isn't very far from it, and he even covers his ass with "I heard". Who did you hear it from Garry, the founder that made out with all the money ? Or the other VC that made a few hundred million from the sale and stands to gain even more if the lie of "founding engineers get rewarded" is perpetuated?

b_be_building 1y ago

No, what Garry is saying DIRECTLY correlates with the outlined opportunity. For his assertion to be right, 40 people need to get paid out at least 1 million. That's 1.67% of the company or 0.04% evenly. Its not hard for me to image that up to 10% of this cap table was distributed among the 40 people.

reducesuffering 1y ago

Hilarious that the best case positive spin highlighted is 40 people cleared at least $1m, so $40m out of $2.4 billion and $240m funding. He's praising "look 2% of the payout went to people in the company". Nevermind that $1m over ~4 years is approximately the same as the differential other public tech co's pay. ($150k + equity at YC co, $350k TC at G/Amzn/FB/Uber/etc.) So when they tell everyone they should work at YC co's, they're saying they're proud when in the absolute best case scenario you make just as much as at the public co's they rail against working for. If you want to come across as genuine, directly say how much % of the payout went to employees that weren't the founders. They won't, because it's likely 3%, which correctly sounds horrible

umeshunni 1y ago
> the absolute best case scenario you make just as much as at the public co's they rail against working for that matches my experience working at 2 non-public venture funded companies.

michaelt 1y ago

> 40 founding engineers Forty founding engineers? Seriously? They must have a very expansive definition of founder.

bloodyplonker22 1y ago
"Founder" and "founding engineer" are two entirely different things. One of those phrases is a glorified substitute for "early engineer". Kind of like when you buy a "founders edition" Nvidia GPU. You are certainly not a founder of anything.
Rexxar 1y ago
'Founding engineer' is the new 'Vice president'

karmasimida 1y ago

Not contracting. Let’s do a simple math. Assume this employee gets 5% of the company (which is super unlikely, but let’s go with it), that is 150m for what could be worth if OpenAI deal went through. 1% of that would be 1.5m. That is still 7 figure. But this person spent 3 years in a startup, which turned out to be a unicorn and super highly successful, and he bagged a FAANG salary man pay at the end of the deal. Basically this just proved startup model for normies are completely broken, if your goal is money, don’t join a startup

xvector 1y ago
It's bizarre to see tech bros, YC, and megacorporations kill the startup talent pipeline that they rely on so much. Who is gonna want to work at a startup in a non-founder role after this and Scale AI? This continuing degradation of, and flagrant disregard for social norms is destructive for society.
- notimetorelax 1y ago
  Young engineers who don’t know how this works yet.
  - anon191928 1y ago
    I will make them this then. I will inform new talent about how VC lies with puting all proof too. New website and SM coming for this
- karmasimida 1y ago
  I think we would be back to historical norm, that startup will start falling behind in attracting talents. The founders of Windsurf had already gotten their bags, they won't have to work a single day later in their life if they don't want to. The consequences will be bared by the ecosystem. For the time being I think they are going to be OK, the labor market is employer friendly.
- baq 1y ago
  the market doing what the market does: price discovery. yes, this is a cynical take, but so is the money in this market.

WatchDog 1y ago

Garry Tan allegedly replied to this tweet, but later deleted it https://x.com/dvassallo/status/1948635445233156239 https://x.com/dvassallo/status/1948635445233156239

ensignavenger 1y ago

It is possible that 7 figure number included the offer to join Google, and since this engineer didn't accept that offer, they would not have recieved the compensation for doing so. It sounds like Garry Yan was getting his information second hand, so it may not include all of the context.