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> It's pretty important to control your equity, and I think the day-trading mentality is toxic. Equity is compensation. You can't tell your employees what to s

by dsl 12y ago

> It's pretty important to control your equity, and I think the day-trading mentality is toxic. Equity is compensation. You can't tell your employees what to spend paychecks on, and you shouldn't be trying to block them from gaining liquidity. Maybe a doctor just told them they have a year to live, and won't be around for your planned 2019 IPO. Unless you are granting them voting shares it is unfair to lock them into your vision of the company going forward, especially if they have departed.

paul 12y ago
I agree that it needs to be clearly communicated (and perhaps they did not do that in this case), but there's no reason why equity must be liquid. I certainly have no expectations of immediate liquidity in my startup investments. Voting is a non-issue. Assuming things are structured right, the founders should retain majority control. The investment is primarily an investment in their vision, not something to be micro-managed by shareholders.
- robrenaud 12y ago
  As a founder, how do you attract engineers from places like Google to your startup? "I am Paul Buchheit, I made Gmail" seems like it would work for you, and something similarly awesome might work for like 10s or 100s of founders. As a Google employee (with pretty high, low variance, liquid compensation), it seems having stock/options or options even a successful pre IPO company are kind of terrible. When you seemed to have won (worked for a successful company, vested), you don't even really win, or at least, not yet. Stay in that same desk, working on that same project until some indefinite future liquidity event happens.
- dsl 12y ago
  > an investment in their vision, not something to be micro-managed by shareholders My point was exactly about vision. Founders vision often change from what was pitched when you join. Let them have a say or let them out at a fair market price.
- chermanowicz 12y ago
  "there's no reason why equity must be liquid" There's also no reason why equity must be illiquid -- or skewed to benefit a company more than the employees that built it. There are ways for people who received equity as compensation to take a little out on terms that are fair for everyone. Just because it's always been done a certain way is not a good justification for this position... after all, Uber is breaking the taxi business in a similar fashion.
wpietri 12y ago
And it's doubly unfair to restrict the stock so that you can buy it back and then flip it for a much higher price. There might be legitimate reasons to control stock shares, but "so you can screw the people who backed you when nobody else would" is definitely not one of them.
- youngtaff 12y ago
  Racketeering?

by dsl 12y ago

paul 12y ago

I agree that it needs to be clearly communicated (and perhaps they did not do that in this case), but there's no reason why equity must be liquid. I certainly have no expectations of immediate liquidity in my startup investments. Voting is a non-issue. Assuming things are structured right, the founders should retain majority control. The investment is primarily an investment in their vision, not something to be micro-managed by shareholders.

robrenaud 12y ago
As a founder, how do you attract engineers from places like Google to your startup? "I am Paul Buchheit, I made Gmail" seems like it would work for you, and something similarly awesome might work for like 10s or 100s of founders. As a Google employee (with pretty high, low variance, liquid compensation), it seems having stock/options or options even a successful pre IPO company are kind of terrible. When you seemed to have won (worked for a successful company, vested), you don't even really win, or at least, not yet. Stay in that same desk, working on that same project until some indefinite future liquidity event happens.
dsl 12y ago
> an investment in their vision, not something to be micro-managed by shareholders My point was exactly about vision. Founders vision often change from what was pitched when you join. Let them have a say or let them out at a fair market price.
chermanowicz 12y ago
"there's no reason why equity must be liquid" There's also no reason why equity must be illiquid -- or skewed to benefit a company more than the employees that built it. There are ways for people who received equity as compensation to take a little out on terms that are fair for everyone. Just because it's always been done a certain way is not a good justification for this position... after all, Uber is breaking the taxi business in a similar fashion.

wpietri 12y ago

And it's doubly unfair to restrict the stock so that you can buy it back and then flip it for a much higher price. There might be legitimate reasons to control stock shares, but "so you can screw the people who backed you when nobody else would" is definitely not one of them.

youngtaff 12y ago
Racketeering?