
WeWork’s 17th employee: I was not offered options - seapunk
https://twitter.com/tristajaye/status/1162471350851817472
======
nolok
So she did what every HN thread on the matter says, with good reason : focus
on your actual job and salary, not on equity that may or may not have some
value some day.

Dont get me wrong it appears the reason she ended up with none is not ok, but
would that thread have been made if wework had ended up being one of those
"failed" startup and those equities never gain any value?

Would she have preferred to get equity but a lower salary (either at that
moment, or on further yearly negotiation) if wework had ultimately failed? Or
if like here she left long before she could use it?

Don't think about what could have been with such things, equity as a lowly
employee at a tech startup is very much like playing the lottery. If you're
not directly invested in it such prefer the hard cash of your salary and don't
let survivor bias make you regret that one time things could have been.

~~~
psadri
If you are joining a startup, you should be there to get equity. This is the
main financial reason to join a startup. If you prefer cash, join a
established company.

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lordnacho
It's very common for young people to not understand financial matters like
options grants. That doesn't mean it's okay to benefit from their ignorance,
especially as the company is now making a large number of people very wealthy.

IMO it's a matter of doing the decent thing over the legal thing. Certainly if
I was making a zillion bucks like the boss of WeWork I would find a way to pay
the early employees who missed out.

~~~
learnstats2
I think it's common for young people to not understand: your employer is not
on your side.

You are making a legal contract which your employer is trying to extract a
maximum amount of profit from, while passing on risk, and has more experience
and understanding of how to negotiate to that effect.

~~~
jakobegger
> your employer is not on your side

Maybe that's true for most venture-funding backed startups, but it's a bit of
an unfair generalisation. There are plenty of employers out there that don't
want to suck their employees dry. Some companies have a more long term vision,
and the easiest way to retain employees for more than a few years is to not
exploit them.

~~~
aprescott
I agree that it's a somewhat unfair generalization that paints a harsh
picture. The core point of the argument still holds though, I think. A cynical
response might be to say that the difference is the employer is accounting for
longer-term replacement hiring/training costs, rather than short term value
extraction. The optimization has new parameters but the structure of the
relationship is still fundamentally transactional. I don't really think that's
how things generally run, though.

Both parties should want a place that's enjoyable to work over the long term,
yet sometimes the company will have to make hard decisions. Priorities slip or
people are straight-up unable to avoid, say, laying off half the staff.
Framing and context matter, as always. "Your employer is not on your side" is
hopefully not a statement about the day-to-day interactions with your boss, or
even a statement about company values, but it can serve as a reminder that
there's always a line somewhere, and, intent aside, your best interests may
simply fall on the wrong side.

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codeddesign
Someone please explain this to me: You apply for a job, you accept the job,
and you work to perform your duties as is expected of you. Options are a perk
that some companies offer. How is it acceptable in any way to believe you are
owed something more than what was agreed upon? Personally I’m getting really
tired of reading stuff like this where people see what others have and
immediately feel they are owed the same or more.

~~~
jmull
I think it's the contrast between what she got vs what others got. The initial
terms of employment don't have anything to do with it.

At some point wework decides to grant options to some of their 120 employees
-- basically a form of bonus. From her perspective, she's been working just as
hard, productively and creatively as many other people who were granted the
bonus, and had been there longer than most.

The terms of the initial employment offer aren't really relevant since it
sounds like various other people who weren't guaranteed options nevertheless
received them (people couldn't have been guaranteed options under a plan that
didn't exist when they hired).

~~~
codeddesign
Agreed. However, the company had the right to give or not. To assume you
personally are owed something because someone else has it is a fairly new and
large cultural issue within tech. You don’t see this coming out of any other
sector. It’s like my children saying that they are owed my money in their
inheritance. It’s my money, I can choose what to do with it. Within bounds,
anyone has the right to disagree with their employer, change jobs, or start
their own company. But never feel that you are owed something.

~~~
jmull
Of course they have the right. That doesn’t make it a good idea! A company
should be smart, insightful and take the long view with compensation
decisions.

Anyway, you’re using the word “owed” but the twitter thread doesn’t, so I’m
not sure we’re talking about the same thing.

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huhtenberg
The way I read it - she was being not-so-subtly hinted to search for another
job.

No way in hell the management wouldn't realize how refusing a 4-year old
employee any options would look on her end. Zero is zero. It's like leaving a
1c tip at a restaurant. So this was most certainly done on purpose.

~~~
prepend
Or more likely management didn’t care whether she looked for new employment.

I’ve been through three of four of these situations and every time there is a
list of positions that management deems important enough to grant options. It
was always clear how not being on that list is perceived and that people might
quit and some consideration was made to not risk losing some they considered
important enough.

I bet it wasn’t the author’s title but the author. The COO knew who she was
and didn’t think she was important enough to grant options. Saying it was
because she had the wrong title seems like a coward move.

I never felt good being on or off the list or making the list. I think it’s
better to award some amount to all early staff. One of the myths and legends
of tech that I loved hearing as a kid was the Microsoft secretary who is not a
millionaire.

Options grants like this describe the character of a company. I don’t think
it’s impossible to work in an org like this, but it should be a factor in
choosing to stay or choosing to join.

~~~
ktaylor
This is a good interpretation of the event as I understand it.

Culturally, it would be a good move to grant all employees before x date a
token number of units so they felt validated. $1k worth of units to a few
dozen employees is a rounding errors worth of dilution but would pay many
intangible dividends to the culture.

I do think, ultimately, the bulk of incentive equity should go to those most
likely to make significant contributions.

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pmontra
She wrote in the thread that people received 1000, 2000 shares. They are
trading at about 35$ now. Who knows, they could skyrocket a few years from now
and be worth millions, but at the moment they are worth a good amount of money
but not a life changing one. Nothing to be sad about.

I worked for a startup many years ago (so they called themselves but being a
phone operator before virtual ones they had to start big, 2k people and more.)
They offered me options but I asked for more salary and less options. It
turned to be the right decision because they got close to the IPO but never
really did it.

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mclightning
Are you entitled to equity in a startup for being there early on? How is being
"naive" and accepting a contract an argument for being mistreated? Am I being
too skeptical?

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dustinmoris
Her personal story aside, which I can imagine must feel a bit bitter, I am of
the opinion that equity should only ever be given to employees who have a
crucial and direct impact on the success of a business. If I join as a COO
into an early startup then I take risks, play a crucial role in it's evolution
and therefore deserve some equity to incentivise the best performance I can
do. However, if I'm an account, even if I'm employee no 2 I would never expect
equity. Doing accounts is not crucial and has nothing to do with the actual
startup itself. If they pay a normal salary for an accountant then any
accountant could just take that job and replace me. Why should the business
owners who must have taken huge risks themselves ever give a piece of their
hard earned cake to an accountant? Doesn't make sense, they get a fair salary
for their work and that is all they deserve.

So there's always two sides to everything. Not everyone always deserves what
others have. That's a common misconception today where everyone looks for
reasons to claim how they've been treated unfairly.

EDIT:

Before more people jump at my throat, I want to clarify that I am not talking
about not compensating employees well because of a stupid reason like they can
get replaced or something. That's not at all what I'm saying and I thought
that was pretty clear. EVERYONE should get a great salary and great work/life
perks, BUT when it comes _specifically_ to giving away OWNERSHIP of one's
business, then IMHO _just being a great employee_ is not reason enough. I just
don't think that everyone should own some % of a company just for rocking up
every day and being nice to their colleagues. That's all.. if you disagree
with that, then fair enough, but then say that, and don't try to teach me that
people should get compensated well, because I never said otherwise.

~~~
jgrahamc
This comment is so horribly wrong that it's hard to know where to start.

1\. "Doing accounts is not crucial". Um, yes it is. Doing accounts is very,
very important. They are a way of understanding the truth of your business,
keeping your cash under control, satisfying legal obligations.

2\. "If they pay a normal salary for an accountant then any accountant could
just take that job and replace me". People are not interchangeable. A good
accountant (one who is competent at their job) is your table stakes, after
that you have to consider how well that person works with others and how they
contribute to the culture of the company. A start up is not about the
visionaries or engineers it's about an entire team that makes a company grow
and work well together. Viewing an accountant is not contributing to the
company culture is not just plain dumb.

3\. Also, accounting is way more than just filling in a spreadsheet. When you
look at the effect of AR and AP on the business you quickly realize that this
stuff matters.

4\. Everyone in a startup could go somewhere else. And everyone is taking some
level of risk (e.g. they could have gone to a more stable company that
provided better long term job prospects). Everyone deserves to participate in
the risk/reward.

So, reward people that you want to stick around at the company. Give everyone
some equity, given everyone some upside. A business owner who sees someone
like an accountant as a drone doing a job for pay is missing out on the larger
picture of building a healthy company for the staff and getting the best from
that person.

~~~
dustinmoris
People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are. Accountants are
not being treated as drones. Whether you think their importance is extremely
crucial in an early startup or less crucial it doesn't matter, because all of
that is taken into account when paying them a _fair_ wage. That is de facto
the definition of fair. So nobody needs to feel offended. You deliver a great
job and we pay you a great salary according to market rates and your
experience. This is how the world works.

If a coffee fetcher or accountant would come to a startup owner and say I want
a piece of your company for making you coffee or filing your tax returns then
they better back up why the business owner will not just ask someone else to
do it at this point. It's not that they don't value their contribution, but
it's just not a reason to give away a piece of your ownership of your own
company where you've put blood and sweat into it.

However, if a subject matter expert comes to me with the same request, and the
market is such that there's already very little people of that qualification
available anyway, and their contributions are seen as make or break the
company, then the conversatoin will certainly be very different.

This is just the free market, no matter how you feel about this, it won't
change. There's obviously the argument that the free market doesn't serve us
well, but that's a different conversation and out of this context here.

~~~
jgrahamc
I think you miss my point that the accountant is part of your team. They are
doing more than just the job of accounting and help build the company culture.
The culture, teamwork etc. are intangibles that will make a big long term
difference.

You are certainly within your rights to decide to keep all the equity to a
small number of people but you'll be building a very different company than
one I would want to work for.

For example, I am very happy that my Executive Assistant has options in my
company. She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day.
There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be
ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.

~~~
dustinmoris
> She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were
> lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one
> day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.

So why don't you give her that upside? As a business owner you can pay her
whatever you would like her to see earn one day. Just do it, there's no
inherent reason why equity has to be given away. Of course if you prefer to
pay her a promise of _maybe_ one day cashing out, but equally not cashing out
at all, then I wonder if you _really_ value her contributions today as much as
you make it sound here. Honestly, people can run amazing companies and treat
their employees really really well from day one, not one day when they win the
lottery.

EDIT:

BTW congrats on the IPO!

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Traster
The fundamental power dynamic of equity is always difficult for employees. Non
C-level employees practically never have the negotiating power to demand
equity. However, I've seen several occasions where founders have constantly
promised their staff equity (whilst underpaying them) and never followed
through. Dangling equity is a great tool for dick head founders.

------
thinkingkong
If its true that everyone else at the company got options but her thats pretty
upsetting. If she was reporting directly to the COO and they had a good
working relationship then that person should have fought for an exercise grant
or eliminated the position.

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avip
I fail to see her point. There’s always lack of transparency in equity
allocation. If there exist a startup with a transparent cap table, that’s
surely exceptional.

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doctorpangloss
Equity is like a superpower in negotiation with employees. Because it is zero
sum among them, it neutralizes collective bargaining—the most effective form
of negotiation they have.

So it’s not as black and white as, she should have done this or that
differently, or someone should have made this or that disclosure or even
helped her out. Equity is pretty magical in how it makes people misbehave and
turn on each other.

And feeling mad that she got a raw deal is the right emotion here.

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jmull
Ouch.

For what it's worth for her peace-of-mind, I really doubt they would have
given her options if she had made a push.

Essentially, the decision had already been made. It's not impossible that they
could have been convinced to change their minds, but it would have required
some new or unexpected leverage to make it happen. (They would have already
factored in that she could have become disgruntled or quit.)

It certainly doesn't seem fair, though.

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nextstep
Well, pessimistically it might not matter much either way. The employees with
stock currently will likely be subject to a six month lock-up period after the
IPO date. And it’s quite likely that the house of cards that is WeWork won’t
survive that much scrutiny as a public company, and the price might be so low
by the time anyone below the executive level can sell.

~~~
bro45
Add to that dilution when owners can print more shares for investors and
different types of shares (aka preferreds) when a common employee often gets
nothing because all the money go to preferreds.

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bobongo
How many women were at the company at the time and how many of those received
equity?

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eps
I understand this person is upset and likely bitter, but claiming that she
remained "naive" about options after 4 years in a startup, when they started
granting them (tweet #15), looks rather odd to me. There's gotta be more to
the story than written.

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xenihn
>By no means do I feel entitled to equity

I think she does come off as entitled. I also think she has every right to
feel that way. #17 is really early. I'd go so far as to say she deserved it.

It feels like ops people are generally under-appreciated in tech.

