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Doesn't seem a bit imbalanced that the CEO owns 80% of the equity and you own 10% if you built 95% of the product and co-founded the company? In this situation
by gautamnarula 13y ago
Doesn't seem a bit imbalanced that the CEO owns 80% of the equity and you own 10% if you built 95% of the product and co-founded the company? In this situation it's clear you should have more equity, so you should negotiate an increase. I imagine you have a fair amount of leverage, since you basically built the product singlehandedly and therefore know much more about the technical side of it than anybody else. My guess is that the only reason such an imbalance would exist is if the CEO put in a lot of his/her own money to bootstrap the company.
- arkades 13y agoAgreed, though I imagine you need to have a response handy when the CEO mentions that part of the trade-off was that you brought home twice the salary he did during the high-risk "will this go anywhere?" times. If he was also the primary investor to begin with, I don't imagine getting too far with the negotiation, although you certainly have significant wiggle room.
- acreby 13y agoGood advice and you are spot on regarding the imbalance - the CEO put up the money in the beginning.