3 ms·
Honestly, 4 year vesting schedules give me almost zero incentive to work harder. The reason is this: These days, founders are more likely to try to make their
by ap22213 11y ago
Honestly, 4 year vesting schedules give me almost zero incentive to work harder.
The reason is this: These days, founders are more likely to try to make their companies look attractive as acquisition targets than try to grow their businesses long-term. Therefore, except for rare companies with exceptional growth potential, an employee can expect the company to either fail quickly or get acquired. So, rarely do typical startups last 4 years.
Further, since it's up to the board and the acquiring company to trigger full vesting on acquisition, and since boards and acquiring companies have no incentive to do so, most employees are left with much less than 4 years of vested options.
- nemanja 11y agogenerally you would have a double trigger, so as long as you stay with the acquirer you would fully vest over time, which is a fair proposition. depending on the terms of the deal and acquirer's stock you may have no optionality (all cash), some optionality (some stock, but low growth), or a lot more optionality (acquirer has a better growth story). there have been cases from the days of the 2000's bubble where gains post-acquisition were 10x. Much less likely today, but certanly possible.
- SeoxyS 11y agoAny stock option worth anything will take 5-10 years to return. You'll know early on if it fails, but any acquisition within the first couple years won't return much to the rank and file.