[semanticc]

Why was the employees' common stock worth $0? Liquidation preference for the outside investors? Related: How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

[oliyoung]

> How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

You don't.

I've walked into every startup with big promises of stock compensation highly cynical about seeing any of that equity, ever.

Unless the cash is sitting in your account, it doesn't exist.

[necubi]

This wasn't a big acquisition, it was an acquihire. The company essentially failed. They raised ~$40M, and it's unlikely they sold for that much. Investors will get some of their money back, and the remaining founder will get some vesting equity at Airtable as incentive to stay post-acquisition.

But so long as you sell for less than your total raise, common shares will be worth nothing even with liquidation preferences of 1x.

[gnicholas]

Sounds like they raised tens of millions and had only $10M or so in the bank. Assuming the sale price wasn't in the tens of millions or greater, no common shareholders would have received anything.

> How can a regular employee joining a startup know beforehand that there isn't a high chance of their equity (which is probably a significant part of their total comp) being worthless even if a big acquisition is made?

Ask to see the cap table to understand what the company would have to be sold for in order for your shares to be worth anything.

[pm90]

You don’t know. Its a gamble. Sometimes it pays off. Most times it doesn’t.

[mring33621]

assume it's worth zero

sadly, founders who are hiring don't want to hear that and typically don't want to compensate fairly for the high probability that their precious offering of equity is worth zero

[yowlingcat]

I think that's a simplification. The upside is that there is clearly a functioning capital market for valuing and capitalizing high growth, early stage companies where you can make a lot of money very fast. The trade off is that if you don't want the high risk part of committing to a high risk asset, you shouldn't join the company in the first place. For this reason, most people shouldn't join most startups. Some people, of course, make a career from doing this well.

For those people, there's a blend of two things: 1) you think you know something the market doesn't -- it may be something cultural, the product-market fit, maybe you're just really impressed with the people and the momentum you're seeing, maybe you have really deep expertise and insight from previous experiences with the industry 2) you just plain enjoy it more, so the high risk premium is worth it to you overall over a more boring job where with a lower ceiling on rewards and career growth but higher risk-adjusted earnings

Working at a startup is often a mixed bag: an unpredictable, fast-paced, exciting journey full of variety and autonomy, with great highs and often even greater lows.

Most people are neither looking for that nor prepared for that day to day. Others believe they are open to it, but out of a desire to find the positive parts while avoiding the negatives, are fundamentally incompatible with doing what would drive success. I've never seen these kinds of folks achieve much consistently at startups.

It's the people who lean into rather than away from the risk that are instead the ones I've seen most success. They survive the notoriously high attrition and harsh pressure to deliver in high-risk situations without playbooks. They both can scale the company and hang onto leadership roles at scale. This, again, should not be and definitionally is not most employees.

[Eridrus]

If the product is being shut down, it is definitely not a big acquisition.

The only way to be sure it's worth something is if a secondary market exists for the shares. This is only going to be true for later stage companies, not early stage ones though.

I think the best advice on the topic of early stage options is this blog post: https://www.benkuhn.net/optopt/

The TL;DR for me is: Be more picky about the company than the specific comp package. When you're there, find as much as you can about the revenue growth and retention metrics (assuming B2B), and quit after your cliff if it doesn't look like it is going well enough to justify the valuation.