Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad

Re:Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad by l2c1928 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @11:20AM (#19625570)

There's a myth that you can't realize gains if a company doesn't IPO...I've already sold some shares in a tender offer. There is an active secondary market for shares if I chose to sell more.

Not sure what your point is about $3MM over 10 years. Why would you divide it over anything other than the number of years you actually worked at the company?

You've assumed I was a senior engineering hire. I was in a junior non-technical role a year out of college.

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Re:Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad by mlthoughts2018 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @11:29AM (#19625649)

Early selling for employees is exceedingly rare and also often on bad terms, this was mentioned in the OP article. Again, it’s lucky that you were able to, but is such a wildly unlikely outcome that functionally everyone else has to ignore that aspect of your story. To boot, being able to sell in a secondary market transaction only after about 3 years is even more ridiculously rare (to the point that it makes me question if your whole story is even true, or just some trolling). The few companies I’ve heard of allowing that type of thing (late pre-IPO Spotify, Squarespace), only allowed it after early employees like yourself would have waited 7-10 years before getting any payout.

> “Not sure what your point is about $3MM over 10 years.”

Please re-read my comment to help understand.

> “You've assumed I was a senior engineering hire. I was in a junior non-technical role a year out of college.”

Where did I make an assumption about junior vs senior level?

As for your claim you were given this grant for a non-technical role 1 year out of college, I think it’s more likely you’re just lying to troll this comment thread. Just in a Bayesian sense, the conditional probability that you’re lying is higher than that this is a true story.

It’s not impossible that this could have happened for a non-tech hire with no experience, but that mere possibility also is irrelevant compared with the far greater probability that this is just made up.

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Re:Startup Stock Options – Why a Good Deal Has Gone Bad by l2c1928 on Wednesday April 10, 2019 @11:38AM (#19625747)

I never said how many years ago I joined...by a "few years" I meant 5. I said I sold some shares via a tender offer, which are company sponsored, and last year was the first time I was offered that opportunity. Companies can't block you from selling on a secondary market unless you've specifically agreed to that as part of the initial grant. It's far more common that they have the "right of first refusal" clause which means they get the chance to buy back your shares before selling to a third party.

I don't think there's anything particularly special about my situation other than I was fortunate to join a now unicorn early on.

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