Comment by gonehome
5 years ago
Their recent 1yr equity periods to screw employees out of upside caused me to lose interest (even though that equity will still likely be very valuable). I really disliked how they tried to spin this as something good for employees.
Which is a shame because a lot of stuff they do is super cool, stripe press, increment (recently discontinued), blog posts, patio11 etc.
It seems like a great place in a lot of ways.
How did this screw people?
If you reprice equity comp each year then you lose most of the upside.
Compare the two following equity plans:
Example Year 1:
---
PLAN 1
FMV: $1
Strike: $1
Total #: 40k ISOs
Vesting: 4yrs
---
PLAN 2
FMV: $1
Strike: $1
Total #: 10k ISOs
Vesting: 1yr
---
In the second plan you get granted new equity per year targeting some total comp.
This means if the equity goes up in value a lot in the first year, when your new amount is recalculated it'll be way less than 10k.
Example Year 2:
---
PLAN 1
FMV: $2
Strike: $1
Total #: 40k ISOs (10k vesting in year 2)
Vesting: 1yr into 4yr period
---
PLAN 2
FMV: $2
Strike: $2 (new grant)
Total #: 5k ISOs (The 10k from the first year, and now half that # determined by new FMV for a cumulative total of 15k instead of 20k ISOs).
Vesting: 1yr on new grant
---
This lets the company keep the majority of the upside, taking it away from employees. It also hurts employees that stay longer or have a longer term interest in the company from capturing the value they helped create.
And the more the company goes up in value, the worse the trade off becomes.
I’m guessing because the equity vests at 1 year, you can’t realize huge gains in stock prices