> There was even a second market offering to let Ryan sell enough shares to pay his taxes and maybe buy a nice house in South Park.

Who was buying the shares from Ryan in this secondary market?

> This is a problem that faces a lot of startups. We should all be more wary of information that's given out, and be more demanding of transparency. Learn a less from all of us PF employees: the more a company talks about their IPO, the less likely it's going to happen.

I generally agree, but no matter how much information is given out, if the last deal is done secretly and with bonuses and pre-arranged values, there is no amount of information that can protect you from that.

I don't remember who was buying, but I think it was literally on "Second Market" before they were acquired by NASDAQ (iirc)... I wanna say that was in the summer of 2015, and was the only official liquidity opportunity that was offered for employees, at least in the last few years that I was aware of. I know some of my colleagues got out with sharespost sales, but those were only the ones who had enough shares qualify for that sale (which, again screwing the lower compensated employees, wouldn't be the customer service teams).

In my mind, there's two things that should change: first, and most importantly, we need better protections for employees in these kinds of situations; second (and a distant second, but still salient since it's the only thing that you really can do to protect yourself), people should be more wary. I totally agree that you can't protect yourself from these kinds of deals done in secret. But, you can look for the kinds of warning signs and stay away.

I know people who were laid off during one of the multiple rounds of layoffs, and still went back to buy their shares. That's some strong Kool-aid, and it makes very little sense to me why one would do that in this context if they weren't being given some strong misinformation.

I've been at a startup that handed out split stock options like candy while the CEO was planning on using his majority control to transfer all IP to a separate entity.

I've been at a startup where the executive team buried a clause in the equity agreement that would allow them to forcibly buy back all shares, where the sum valuation of the company was how much money was deposited into a single, explicitly defined bank account.

I've seen a non-compete agreement that stated the employee was not only barred from working for competitors for five years, but working in the entire industry altogether.

It's amazing the depths of greed you can find when you read the fine print.

Too bad that's probably not enforceable. But sure it sounds serious when you don't know no better.

He was a lawyer.

When I pointed out the bank account valuation to the CEO of that startup, he said, "that's not what that says." I informed him that I had run the agreement through two lawyer friends who had confirmed my interpretation.

Doesn't have to be rules, just a guide and companies who comply and those who don't.

For an example how this could work, see the CFA and GIPS. Every big asset manager is in compliance with GIPS. Every reputable startup should choose whether to be compliant with best practices for equity for employees.

That word has already gotten around and is one of the main reasons for ageism in the industry - the only people who will work for startups are those who haven’t been burnt or wised up yet.

This is an interesting thing to consider. If you look at the current president of YC (sama), at least from an outsider's perspective, he's the beneficiary of exactly the type of behavior you're trying to get away from. Based on his company's exit, he is now a VC, but his company was acquired for essentially what it raised, meaning the employees' stock was likely worthless. I have absolutely nothing personal against sama, but let's remember that YC doesn't exist as a charity, it's a business.

I cant imagine one measure increasing salaries and efficiency more than allowing employees to trade stock.

But let's also remember that the people running YC are adults, fully capable of telling right from wrong, and fully capable of being held responsible for their actions. Being "a business" is no more of an excuse for their actions than "following orders" is.

man...fuck this shit hard...this is just straight up deceiving people

I want to ask this without sounding like it's an indictment: do most honestly offer their empathy with similar conditions?

Interestingly, if someone wrote "I don't feel sorry for fast food workers, they had enough info to learn a skill and earn more," that usually strikes a nerve with a lot of people. But software devs getting nothing?

That said, getting fleeced sucks and most likely it is similar to why people who know better fall for most scams - they think they can beat the system. They know it is false information but they think they are good enough to still come out ahead and the other sucker is going to take a hit. Sometimes they are right but most of the time they are the sucker.

Wow. $700 * 300,000,000 shares outstanding (according to the screenshot someone else posted) = $210,000,000,000. That was... optimistic.