Comments on Piaw's Blog: Stock Compensation At Startups

Hi Srini, there are several ways you can find out ...

2009-11-22T23:00:45.766-08:00

Hi Srini, there are several ways you can find out the # of outstanding shares of the company:
1. You can ask. Most of the time, HR will tell you.
2. Secondmarket.com will have the prospectus for companies listed with them. (I checked with them to look at Facebook's outstanding shares, and they have about 1 billion shares outstanding)
3. Ask to see the Series X contract terms for the most recent round of financing. It usually has the pre-money valuation, post-money valuation, and the total shares outstanding.

If you're a co-founder (as opposed to an employee), then presumably you have some of your own money tied up in the startup. At that point, you're co-equal with the other investors, and the typical thing to do is to sum up all the investments, and divide it by a per dollar basis, and perhaps throw in a factor for forgone wages as set by the co-founders.

If you're just the first employee, 0.5% of the company is not unusual, especially since you'll almost certainly be diluted down in future rounds!

Piaw, How does one find the % of a company/# of o...

2009-11-22T22:49:31.322-08:00

Piaw,

How does one find the % of a company/# of outstanding shares of the company? What are the numbers typically for a founding member(architect)?

Thanks,
Srini

When your job is no longer about money, working at...

2009-01-05T21:01:00.000-08:00

When your job is no longer about money, working at a cool place with cool people is a lot more important than rolling the dice and searching for the next big thing.

Cool. You've mostly vested, what the heck are you ...

2009-01-05T18:49:00.000-08:00

Cool. You've mostly vested, what the heck are you still doing around? :)

Heh. Those numbers come out of my experience with ...

2009-01-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

Heh. Those numbers come out of my experience with 4 silicon valley startups + google. And yes, accelerated vesting is very sweet. In fact, when I'm at a startup, I'd rather get bought out than do an IPO, and that's one of the reasons.

What source did you get for the percentages? The p...

2009-01-05T17:02:00.000-08:00

What source did you get for the percentages? The percentage you posted was right on spot with what Guy Kawasaki said. This is an excellent blog esp. for new engineers. It's as informative as Guy Kawasaki's startup articles, as well as Paul Graham's blogs (and his Y-combinator stuff).

As a Googler I work for a bunch of YouTubers, a bunch of them got accelerated vesting. A bunch of them are taking a "leave of absence" for a long time. Hmmm! There are very interesting dynamics going on right now.

Excellent stuff Piaw, keep it up!

Yeah, that was great! This and your financial advi...

2009-01-02T14:35:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that was great! This and your financial advice would make a great book.

Perhaps add a bit taking about preferred stock for investors and who gets paid first during a buyout (not me!).

The book is a great idea! Or maybe just a website...

2009-01-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

The book is a great idea! Or maybe just a website. This info was very hard to come by back in the day.

I found this pretty informative and would be inter...

2009-01-01T23:56:00.000-08:00

I found this pretty informative and would be interested in more.