When I was in my 20s a guy wanted me to maintain his website that sold do l delivery service of food to college kids and it would have been my first paying gig doing it but he wanted to pay me in “equity” which at the time translated into he wanted free labor and I ghosted him.
About 10 years ago he sold his company to Grub Hub for a few hundred million. Fucked that one up.
He would’ve screwed you anyway. “Equity” is so laughably easy to dilute to nada in startups through various means that there are numerous articles and parodies of it out there.
I worked for a startup that didn’t meet its VC’s “valuation” goal even though we were stupidly profitable nearly from day one. Market-forces driven downround. When I left, the options I had were previously promised to be worth hundreds of thousands but because of dilution, weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I didn’t let them give me options “in lieu of base comp” though, so I ended up ok but not everyone did.
When I was in my 20s a guy wanted me to maintain his website that sold do l delivery service of food to college kids and it would have been my first paying gig doing it but he wanted to pay me in “equity” which at the time translated into he wanted free labor and I ghosted him.
About 10 years ago he sold his company to Grub Hub for a few hundred million. Fucked that one up.
He would’ve screwed you anyway. “Equity” is so laughably easy to dilute to nada in startups through various means that there are numerous articles and parodies of it out there.
I worked for a startup that didn’t meet its VC’s “valuation” goal even though we were stupidly profitable nearly from day one. Market-forces driven downround. When I left, the options I had were previously promised to be worth hundreds of thousands but because of dilution, weren’t worth the paper they were printed on. I didn’t let them give me options “in lieu of base comp” though, so I ended up ok but not everyone did.
I’m sorry it worked out that way for you. Sucks seeing hard working people get screwed over…
And that’s a good point and not one I considered. With how financially savvy I wasn’t I wouldn’t have even seen it coming.