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Always drives me crazy when friends join startups and talk about their options. Them: "They gave me 5000 stock options!" Me: "What's the strike price? How ma
by the_watcher 13y ago
Always drives me crazy when friends join startups and talk about their options.
Them: "They gave me 5000 stock options!"
Me: "What's the strike price? How many shares are outstanding?"
Them: "What?"
- danielweber 13y agoI have to share my war story of trying to get prospective employees and offering them 2000 shares, 0.1% of the company. Only to find out they someplace else that offered them 50,000 shares, because 50K > 2K. And, no, it's not the case that I'm better off without these people.
- the_watcher 13y agoThat's an aspect I have to admit I didn't consider. What do you do if your prospective employees simply don't understand options and don't ask the right questions when getting offers? 2,000 shares of 10000 outstanding is much better than 50,000 out of 1,000,000,000. Many highly intelligent people I know simply have never had this explained to them. Maybe the solution is if you are giving them a great deal that you think can compete with any other reasonable offer, you make sure to explain thoroughly what it means and how to evaluate competing offers?