As this gets more common, I think it will eventually lead to startups having a hard time attracting talent with lucrative equity compensation. It will be interesting to see how long it takes until this catches on among employees, but I already wouldn't take any positions in startups with a significant payment in equity anymore. The chances are slim that this pays out anyways, but now even when you are successful, noone will stop some megacorp from just buying the product and key employees and leaving everyone else with their stake in the dust.
At my last job search I didn’t consider any equity based startups seriously because of this trend. It was already such a tenuous path as it stood, but now with the norm established it seems like it’s become impossible for a rank and file employee to get paid out.
I’m more curious how angel investors are being treated in these exits. If _they_ dry up the whole pipeline goes away
Investors with enough into the deal to fight it in court get enough to not fight it. Key employees needed by the 'not acquirer' get compensation sufficient to retain them, although increasingly much of this is under a deferred vesting arrangement to ensure they stay with the 'not acquirer'.
Non-essential employees and small investors without the incentive or pockets to fund a legal fight get offered as little as possible. This structure also provides lots of flexibility to the 'not acquirer' when it comes to paying off existing debts, leases, contracts, etc. Basically, this is the end of being an early employee or small angel investor potentially resulting in a lucrative payoff. You have to remain central and 'key' all the way through the 'not acquisition'. I expect smaller early stage investors will start demanding special terms to guarantee a certain level of payout in a 'not acquisition'. I also expect this to create some very unfortunate situations because an asset sale (as they used to be done), could be a useful and appropriate mechanism to preserve the products and some jobs of a failing (but not yet fully failed) company - which was better for customers and some employees than a complete smoking crater.
that is a great point. it’s one thing to occasionally rugpull employees, who are still at least paid for their services and robbed only of their EV on their options (i say “only”, though i find this increasingly common practice to be absolutely deplorable, to be clear). but how could investors possibly be happy with this becoming the new normal? will it get to the point where these sorts of faux acquisitions also involve paying out investors and only shafting employees? at that point you are only really even getting like a 20% discount over acquiring the company outright, which hardly seems worth it. which is to say that your point is very astute: the investors are definitely the linchpin here.
The company still got $20B of cash(?) in its books, it can pay dividends to its shareholders (investors) and they get their payment. The company can go down the drain afterwards. If it can still make money with its remaining assets that's only a nice small bonus.
So the only ones getting shafted are the employees.
I suppose the firm could simply roll the 20 billion into a long term asset. It’s not a big deal to anyone except employees if the asset never pays out. Departed employees would not be privy to how the money is eventually exited from the now shell company 20 years hence.
20% of 20b isn’t exactly loose change, even for a megacorp.
true, but given that recruiters take upward of 30% of first-year comp it starts to really flirt with being a wash. if the acquiree’s employees are truly that odious, the founders aren’t worth the price of admission. just look at the scale.ai guy: he is in wayyy over his head now, and if those billions mattered at all to zuck he would probably regret it, ex post.
> will it get to the point where these sorts of faux acquisitions also involve paying out investors and only shafting employees?
Yes, correct
The chance of rank and file employees getting anything has always been small now its smaller.
It's already happening. You need a good lawyer to read equity terms to make sure you aren't going to get rug pulled by a founder later on. Even so I still consider equity to generally be worth zero unless the founder is someone I trust fully, since there are so many ways for them to legally not give you anything.
The equity in almost all startups has already been a bait and switch for more than a decade. Most will refuse to answer you about % of equity share anyways, but if they did it's tiny tiny amounts, and in the end half the time it's up to the acquiring entity just how seriously they end up taking it. If you landed at an entity like Google (as I did from the place I was working 15+ years ago) you could be treated well. Elsewhere, not great.
During boom times it made more financial sense to go straight to a FAANG if you could.
If you ask me there has been a major shift into trying to make "startups" into just another form of corporation. It started years ago when I started seeing things like "Founder Engineer - 0.5% equity" in jobs here.
With the job market being in the state it is in, there will always be people wanting to take their chances.
Let's face it and accept that the golden days of people working in tech startup (and soon large companies) are over.
RIP 1980 - 2023.
LOL@Americans waking up.
I guess you'll have to face the music at some point.
Looking at GDP, the golden age is still right here.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.CD?location...
/s
Different kind of gold raining down on us now though
You should have just bought gold
Naa, just wait, its dribbling down.
it always dribbles down after it dribbles up and then it dribbles down again…
Though (very) unevenly distributed
Need this plotted against cumulative American debt lol
>As this gets more common
Boy, it would be so nice if a major correction were to drain these massive companies' warchests so that it doesn't become more common.
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