[Gamemaster1379]

I got forced into working for some garbage startup at a job early in my career. The CEO was absolutely psychotic and never put much effort into hiding his motives.

The guy gave me a "Pre selection" letter (bokded at the top that it was "NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT") that I was selected to receive 1,000,000 shares, vested at 250k a year (no one year cliff into monthly). 1,000,000 of how many? Didn't say. Percentage? Nope. Was it 25% 3% .00003% Who knows!

I eventually was forced out after him verbally abusing me, making unsubstantiated accusations about how I spoke to other employees, and doing things like asking me to clock out and continue to talk about work.

I received two death threats after I quit. And, seven years later, I get a threatening letter falsely accusing me of defaming the company under random online accounts. After rejecting the allegations, I got a "settlement letter" that demands I forfeit all obligations, and can never talk about the employer again. It also explicitly stated I'd get $0 and that they "wouldn't appear at my place of residence" as my benefits.

Last I saw the SEC audited them and said they had no revenue and no products to commercialize.

They raised $6m on fundraising sites selling SAFEs, but had $800k in assets and $6m in debt. Oh, the most interesting part is the owner had the company paying his other computer repair business $5k a month for IT services.

It really reenforced for me how meaningless the whole process. Working for that company was a lifetime mistake.

[fragmede]

Damn, that really sucks. It really is the luck of the draw. I started at a company that just paid me an hourly rate with no promises of stock options but I could just as easily have been dragged into some kind of mess like you experienced.

[Gamemaster1379]

That's what I started as well with this employer. I never wanted to get involved with their other project but they forced me on it. I was trying to find another employer the entire time but it was just around the time Trump got elected the first time and nobody seemingly wanted to hire