birken

36 ms·

301.
by birken 10y ago
Great series. As a fellow early employee I love for their stories to get told! > That said, startups have culturally matured in the last ten years and it’s been fun to watch ... What’s really great to see is that all those people who we
302.
Show HN: Friendly Options – site for understanding/comparing stock option grants(danbirken.com)
1 points by birken 10y ago|0 comments
303.
by birken 10y ago
Boy this article is a very friendly interpretation of Scott Kupor's blog post. From NYTimes: > He [Scott Kupor] also suggests a longer period for employees to exercise options after they leave, up to 10 years. That figure is endors
304.
by birken 10y ago
That is pretty funny, I wrote the code for that blacklist like 5-6 years ago when Thumbtack was being hammered with spam requests from China and India. I thought it only blocked POST requests, though maybe my memory is wrong or they have m
305.
by birken 10y ago
Absolutely. This is only interesting (and that is a generous description) because of who is being interviewed, not what is being said. Surprised YC would post something like this, because it is much more towards celebrity worship than p
306.
by birken 10y ago
The problem with this line of thinking is that smart companies: 1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit 2) The people in charge of smart
307.
by birken 10y ago
On the more finance side of the industry maybe, but not in a situation like this. First of all, YC has at minimum hundreds of millions in their fund ready to invest out and I'm sure no shortage of LPs looking to give YC more money. Wh
308.
by birken 10y ago
As long as the valuation of the company is going up more than the dilution, the value of existing shares goes up. In an early stage company that might mean raising a Series A where the valuation of the company goes up 100% and shares are di
309.
by birken 10y ago
Around 65% of the population in SF are renters. If it were simply homeowners vs renters, renters would win in a landslide. Who do you think was pushing for proposition I (an 18 month development moratorium in the mission) to pass? It wasn
310.
by birken 10y ago
That's great if that belief motivates you to work hard on your company. Whatever makes you happy. Your advice just isn't as broadly applicable as you think it is. Companies never really "stable out." In my experience
311.
by birken 10y ago
> Unless you are building a lifestyle business, you do not have a successful company until your small team is on fire. I was a "founding employee" of a very successful company and I don't think I would have ever classified
312.
by birken 10y ago
Guys, this isn't about finding a new funnel for YC to attract new companies, this is about entertainment. Look at the success of the startup podcast [1], which is very high on the itunes charts and not coincidentally just featured a v
313.
by birken 11y ago
When you raise a Series A or later funding there normally is an extensive amount of due diligence done before the deal is closed. Sometimes you pay for it, sometimes the VC pays for it, but it happens. Before that point spending extensive
314.
by birken 11y ago
Agreed. I also was rubbed the wrong way by: > parted ways ... and well before the company had achieved much of anything. There are many shareholders of Thumbtack who left voluntary (or not) "well before the company had achieved muc
315.
by birken 11y ago
This is a classic comment from a VC perspective that isn't broadly true. From his perspective, all the smart people he knows are getting seed funding easily. However, by definition they are well connected to the VC community (they ar
316.
by birken 11y ago
Personally I don't think bleaching is as big of a problem as acidification. The natural selection process they are attempting to speed up happens naturally anyways. Corals bleach, then the more robust ones which didn't bleach ov
317.
by birken 11y ago
Sam Altman was a co-founder and the CEO of Loopt
318.
by birken 11y ago
Yes, it does matter. If the stock has appreciated in value, your exercise price may be low but your AMT bill may be high even if you have no liquidity at all. In my case I paid more in AMT than I did to exercise all my shares, though both
319.
by birken 11y ago
Great stuff. I've personally had to deal with these decisions and know many friends who struggled with figuring out how they could possibly pay for exercising their vested shares, in some cases after they were laid off and had no choic
320.
by birken 11y ago
On one side of a transaction you have VCs, who have long investment horizons and are highly incentivized to maximize returns, taking a short-term profit on an investment long before it has (theoretically) reached its potential. On the othe
321.
by birken 11y ago
Sure, at Thumbtack my initial offer was towards the top of the range to be the first hire there (I actually negotiated for less equity and more money, but they wanted me to take more equity... oops!). Worked out pretty well.
322.
by birken 11y ago
In my example I'm talking about a seed stage startup where the engineer being hired is going to be a critical part of the team and has relevant experience. No board, no major dilution yet. Don't get me wrong, 2% is much more app
323.
by birken 11y ago
Depending on your skill level relative to everybody else, probably 2-5% would be a good range, though it also would depend on what your salary is. Less than 2% and either you are being paid a lot or you aren't that important to the te
324.
by birken 11y ago
Well I've been in the SF tech community for a long time and can't say I've experienced any superficial or dehumanizing things at parties. There are certainly jerks in the tech community, but there are jerks everywhere. If y
325.
by birken 11y ago
The raw numbers of sign-ups and revenue are interesting as a broad health check, but they don't really provide enough context to give you meaningful feedback of what your chances of continued growth are like. The stuff I'd be more
326.
If You Aren't Doing Basic Conversion Optimization, You Probably Should Be(danbirken.com)
8 points by birken 11y ago|0 comments
327.
by birken 11y ago
None of these people are bosses or gatekeepers! Even if I gave you a magical power where anytime you wanted your site would simultaneously be posted on Techcrunch, #1 on HN and #1 on Product Hunt, it probably would make no difference in you
328.
by birken 11y ago
But that can happen anywhere. The question is did you post succeed or fail because of the random luck, the merit of the post, or because of some built in bias within the system. For example, if I tried to post my new product on Product Hun
329.
by birken 11y ago
Hacker News is a long-running, open, inclusive startup community that is subsidized by a related business, doesn't sell anything, and has proven time and again to do things good for the entire startup community. Product Hunt is a new,
330.
by birken 11y ago
Yup, as an early employee of a very successful company, I know the opposite side of this. The ratio of key contributions between founders:early employees is probably between 2:1 and 1:1, while the ratio of tech press is about 1000:0. And

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