News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn by gnicholas on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @09:35PM (#13432483)
While employees may irrationally put in too much effort because of their perceived ownership value, the comparison to slivers of ownership of publicly-traded companies.

One person can make a difference in the value of a 20-person company, and if that person has a 1% stake in the company it can be rational to work longer hours to make that happen.

On the other hand, there is very little that a shareholder of a public company can do to materially affect the bottom line of that company. And as the owner of perhaps .000001% of that company, that person would see very little financial benefit from such effots.

Re:What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn by bbcbasic on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @11:07PM (#13432923)
Yes it all depends on the details. 1% stake !== option to buy 1%, based on the info presented in the link though.

A 1% option seems more like the poker game ante, but you need to keep putting more in (time, effort or even cold hard cash) to stay in the game :-)