
Why I will not exercise my GitLab stock options - msc101
https://medium.com/@patocano/why-i-will-not-exercise-my-gitlab-stock-options-bf6f3dda62e
======
owenversteeg
Anyone who just cares about the numbers: he was given options of 45,000
shares, of which 15,000 had vested. These 15,000, or 0.0833% of the company,
were available to him at $0.27/share, or $4,050 total. So he had the
opportunity to buy 0.0833% of the company at a $4.8MM valuation. Given that
they recently raised $20MM at an undefined valuation it really says something
that he chose not to exercise the options. I really recommend you all read the
post.

Also, damn, that email from the CEO about his private Twitter. That's
completely out of line.

For those of you that didn't read the article, the CEO called him out about a
specific tweet (on a personal account with only 146 followers) where he linked
to GitLab's page on Github for crying out loud.

(also, curious note: this comment went from 4 points to zero in less than five
minutes. Hmmmm.)

~~~
zeveb
> Damn, that email from the CEO about his private Twitter. That's completely
> out of line.

It regarded his _professional_ work on GitLab:
[https://twitter.com/suprnova32/status/720396175954698240](https://twitter.com/suprnova32/status/720396175954698240)

I think it's completely appropriate that he link instead to GitLab for such a
thing, and I think it's remarkable that he didn't think the same. This isn't
like the ad world, where if your customer is Coke you can't be seen drinking a
Pepsi in public (which I agree is crazy): he was posting about GitLab itself,
linking to their GitHub mirror instead of to their own site, which completely
undermines the GitLab position.

~~~
Everhusk
Why is GitLab even using Github?

[https://github.com/gitlabhq](https://github.com/gitlabhq)

~~~
aquabib
Backup.

~~~
hackerboos
Doesn't inspire confidence in the platform...

~~~
jameskegel
I started to refute this, but as I reviewed my post, I came to the realization
that I have less confidence in the platform today than I did 12 months ago.
Don't get me wrong, I like the Gitlab team, if you could call it that, for
their transparency under duress, and how they kept us abreast of the troubles.
However, the 'people' is not to be confused with the 'product', and if you're
one of the users affected by recent events, then you may be justified in not
giving a positive review of their service.

------
mixologic
I didnt really see anything here of any real substance, other than OP
strangely thinks that twitter is private, and that the CEO rightly advised him
to link to _their own product_ instead of their competitors. I cant really see
how thats a "run in" with the CEO.

All the other cultural issues he seems to bemoaning are all consequences of
growth in a startup. Information flow gets harder with more people.

As far as the CMO moving on to github, that certainly doesn't seem to be all
that sinister of an indictment. If you have experience in marketing a
developer tool to developers and software businesses, you're probably going to
leverage that experience getting a job marketing a developer tool to
developers and software businesses.

The one thing he's likely right about is that there probably isnt enough
market to actually chase, github has a huge piece of it already and hasn't
been able to liquidate, so its not obvious where their growth is going to come
from besides eating away githubs marketshare. But thats probably why they seem
to be pivoting more towards a holistic tool set that is bigger than version
control (like the atlassian example). But only time, execution, and a whole
lot of luck with show how it all pans out.

~~~
barrkel
_CEO rightly advised_

I don't think it's right at all. What gives him that right? Why is it morally
wrong to do otherwise? What kind of right are you talking about?

~~~
exclusiv
It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab. Employees can be
told what to do. You don't have to comply, but when you get a fair request and
you make a big deal of it - you have to be prepared for the consequences.
Contractors - no you can't do that stuff; you can't tell them when or how to
work... they have a lot of protections.

The CEO request to change the link wasn't unreasonable. Why would a CEO want
employees that aren't going to be champions of their own company they work
for? However, I do think the author made fair requests to the CEO (like hiring
Community Managers) and he might have been booted for not "falling in line".
That's messed up.

At the same time - he should probably disconnect himself from the emotions
regarding the stock options and ask himself if it's a good deal financially.
Seems like it to me.

~~~
will_hughes
> It was a fair request to have a key member link to GitLab.

This leads to situations like what Microsoft used to be (and perhaps still is)
- that Everything Had To Be IE And Bing. There could be no acknowledgement of
the other brand by name.

> Employees can be told what to do.

On company time, certainly. When representing the company, for sure. Even
perhaps if it's sufficiently controversial where you're bringing the company
into disrepute by association.

But when none of that applies, then no.

~~~
exclusiv
It was a fair request. If you're CEO you try to rally your people. It wasn't a
demand. The author had no reason to be stubborn about it. There were obviously
other areas to be concerned about as I sided with the author on, but this
wasn't one of them and it derails from the other arguments.

------
6stringmerc
One of the major takeaways for me from this article was about how sincere
feedback and contributions to the company can be so quickly brushed aside.
Making improvements aren't always easy, but espousing a "two-way street" then
acting very "top down" is dishonest. A cultural issue.

Then I saw the communication about performance and then the firing, and I
don't feel a reason to doubt the author. It's not a new story or situation.
I've witnessed first-hand how some employees can be 'set up' by management to
pretty much ensure a Termination channel. I'm not claiming the employee in my
example was a Saint, but I watched the machine work and HR is not your friend.

A distant relative I got to meet was a career HR professional, eventually
becoming the Top Dog at a company with 20k+ employees. He had one phrase for
me that has been and continues to be invaluable: Guard Your Words & Actions.

This article should be appreciated for digging into the personal elements of
reflecting on 'warning signs' that maybe there wouldn't be a happy ending.
Wisdom is not always easily earned. What this author did is share some very
personal experiences in their own perspective and I think, in many ways, it's
like therapy.

We sometimes question our own choices and intentions in hindsight because in
the moment clarity isn't possible. We're human. This piece felt very
liberating to me, because I know I've been in similar situations and wondered
if I was the one out of line or if maybe there was a bigger picture.

Sometimes talking dollars is the way we get down to what we value. This author
is essentially putting his money where his mouth is. That, to me, is important
and impressive.

~~~
cpncrunch
>One of the major takeaways for me from this article was about how sincere
feedback and contributions to the company can be so quickly brushed aside.

I didn't see that from the gitlab comments. It just looks like a technical
discussion where his colleagues disagreed with his analysis.

~~~
6stringmerc
My bad for not being more clear - there's a specific part in the article (I
highlighted on Medium) that stated this:

> _I was in charge of hiring them, so I went to great lengths to make sure my
> team consisted of the best possible people, with great engineering skills.
> You would imagine my concern and indignation when the CEO decided that the
> Service Engineers were to handle not just our increasingly demanding
> enterprise customers, but also every single GitLab related question posted
> on the internet, not just Twitter and /or Facebook, the entire internet!

I, of course, opposed this measure and went on to make my point as to why that
was the case. I also suggested hiring specialized people, like Community
Managers, to handle this task, which to me sounded reasonable, but management
saw this as me going against the company’s best interests. To me, this clearly
meant that it was no longer OK to voice your opinions, like it was in the
past. In hindsight, this should have been the second clue._

That is the point I was getting at in I can see the value being added in
multiple sectors! First, trying to cultivate talent and feeling responsible
for that. Second, recognizing out-of-scope "Mission Creep" and speaking up.
Third, not just complaining but offering a viable solution to the dispute.
Fourth, being able to reflect that when good ideas are shot down without
clarity and respect for the person and responsibilities being brought forward,
is very important to the soul.

That's what I was referencing and I hope to have brought more context to my
reasoning.

~~~
cpncrunch
It's hard to really understand what was going on from this. How exactly did he
voice his opinions, and how did the company respond? From the only evidence
given (the gitlab comments), he seems to be overblowing things somewhat.

~~~
6stringmerc
Counter-Point, never having a voice until "The Bobs" show up and do some
"consulting" a la Office Space.

> _...So that means that when I make a mistake, I have eight different people
> coming by to tell me about it. That 's my only real motivation is not to be
> hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will
> only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired._

Post Script: Not Everybody Can Afford to Jerry McGuire Out A Gig. This essay?
Closer and more real than most claim to be.

------
danaliv
Being publicly critical of a former employer like this, unless you're talking
about major ethical issues, seems like a bad move. There's just no way to do
it without it coming across as sour grapes.

If you have constructive criticism because you believe in a company and want
them to do better, give it directly to the people involved. Otherwise I just
have to wonder what the real motive is behind making a public statement like
this.

~~~
mattbee
On the flip-side, never let one of your staff leave your company so unhappy
they write a hit-piece.

As a CEO you'll know if your company has been a less-than-great manager to a
member of staff. (If don't have lots of written evidence that you've been
managing them well ... you've probably been managing them badly.)

This guy is pained he wasn't able to contribute as Gitlab grew. You can't
always bring someone round as a company changes shape, but you can be kind &
generous if you need to fire them.

~~~
e40
_On the flip-side, never let one of your staff leave your company so unhappy
they write a hit-piece._

In a world where everyone is reasonable, that's good advice. There are some
people you can't reason with. What I'd look for here, if I were working at
Gitlab (I'm not): is there a pattern? If not, then don't worry about it. If
there is, then worry.

I've seen bad exits that were the fault of the company, and ones that weren't.

------
OhSoHumble
I don't know how I feel about this blog post but I think it reflects poorly on
both the author and GitLab.

I feel that a company should always give feedback to an employee who is let
go. Whether it's a simple letter or an exit interview, individuals should have
closure when they're leaving a company and it doesn't sound like the author
received that feedback. Furthermore, if nobody - a manager, for example -
explicitly says "your job performance is not up to par for your position and
we need to improve that" before an employee is let go then that shows a lack
of organizational maturity.

I think the gripes he had were somewhat fair; if a mid-level engineer is given
a task outside his comfort zone and he communicates that he's having trouble
then a good senior engineer should be able to provide design and
implementation advice to the less skilled employee. In my opinion, that's a
huge portion of being a senior engineer - if one employee is floundering in
his technical task then you need to be there as a patient, understanding, and
willing mentor. Heck, even senior engineers aren't immutable bastions of
knowledge and should rely on their fellow senior engineers to be a mesh
network of interlinking skill sets.

The email about the tweet seemed justified if a little petty. The author was
expressing pride over contributing to the product his company was putting
forth. While it could be argued that he should have linked to GitLab itself,
it is a gray area and I feel that stark admonishment isn't a fair or correct
response.

In the end, it's still a very public complaint and these articles are mostly
frowned on. That being said, I appreciate that this Medium post exists. It's a
point of view to take into consideration if I ever plan to interview at GitLab
- even if the author is enacting the definition of 'burning bridges.' To
conclude, whenever I read articles like this I always have to think "well,
what other points of view are there to consider?"

~~~
ryguytilidie
I guess at some point we should ask ourselves why "public complaints and these
articles are mostly frowned on". I get that we should encourage
professionalism, but this code of "don't say anything bad about your former
employer" leads to a lot of startups getting away with pretty bad things. I
feel like if a company has behaviors exposed and they are ashamed of those
behaviors, their reaction should be to fix or eliminate those behaviors, not
admonish the person who exposed them.

~~~
5thaccount
...unless it is Uber, then you can say whatever you want, apparently. The
general perception of what is right or wrong is always so situational, and
that is weird to me.

I agree with your comments, and I can see the other side as well (keep ones
mouth shut because opening it likely hurts the individual the most), it just
seems like the arguments are used so situationally, and I don't understand
why. Maybe it is in our nature to be inconsistent?

~~~
gtirloni
The arguments are somewhat dependent on the gravity of the acts.

------
newsat13
Just wanted to comment that I totally admire the bravery behind this post.
GitLab definitely grows too fast (it was 200 last I checked).

It amazes me that far too many here are afraid of repercussions and
retaliation by future employers (just see the "warnings" about bad blood in
the comments here). That too on HN (who are supposedly the idealists who want
to changes the world and all that)! Seriously guys, all this person has done
is detail his experiences in what he thinks is the truth. And believes it
enough to let go of a good chunk of money.

Also, this comment surprised me (from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14037692)):

"Unfortunately, as a contractor, you do not have these protections. Given that
the entire company is remote, only a tiny percentage of the people that work
at GitLab are actually employees, and they take full advantage of that. "

Wow.

~~~
gtirloni
People commenting about bad repercussions are just being pragmatic.

~~~
newsat13
And yet silicon valley and none of the million startups would be possible by
being pragmatic.

~~~
gtirloni
You can't be idealistic at all levels of your life.

------
stevejohnson
Whether the substance of this is true or not, it seems unwise to have posted
it. It probably felt good to write, but now there's a real risk that future
employers will perceive it as a negative signal. ("If we hire this guy, will
he air all our dirty laundry in public if it doesn't work out?")

I have thoughts about whether his perceptions are accurate, but I mostly just
want to say: kids, if you're thinking of writing something like this, probably
don't. Go out for drinks with a friend and vent one on one instead.

------
vinceguidry
As companies grow, their politics changes. It's a fact of life. You want to
keep working at a startup, quit and go find a job at another startup.

If this bitch-fest affects his career at all, it won't be in a good way.

I've seen more than one developer lose their jobs over politics. One guy, I've
seen sabotage job after job over his idealism. I try to help him but you can't
teach political savvy to an unwilling student. He hears and understands me,
then goes and does the exact opposite of what I tell him to do. And it has
exactly the effect I predicted.

I maintain that the biggest reason developers can't get ahead is because they
don't have the stomach for politics.

~~~
barrkel
Identity trumps economics. Idealism is a political position; it's just not an
economically rewarding one. It can feed the ego, though, and taking the other
road - sacrificing principles for money - may lead to more net unhappiness.

~~~
vinceguidry
My friend the idealist is way less happy than I am. I submit that he would be
happier if he had more say, more money, and more flexibility at his job, but
he threw that all away in the name of idealism. I agree, identity trumps
economics, but there is such a thing as having more principles than sense.

~~~
educar
For many, Happiness is not a goal of life. Rightful living is. See Buddha,
Gandhi, MLK etc. Sure, You might be happier than them but that hardly means
anything

~~~
vinceguidry
These people you are holding up as paragons were way more political than you
probably remember reading about. Particularly Gandhi. The only difference
between their politics and your politics is that they actually accomplished
things.

Not being willing to get political dooms you to a life of both mediocrity and
misery.

------
calcsam
The GitLab exec team is probably pretty happy to be reading this blog post.
Because Patricio isn't exercising his stock options they will return to the
option pool, where they are available for re-allocation to new hires.

0.1% of a Series B company is the entire four-year grant for a new engineer,
or several sales / operations folks.

~~~
vladimirralev
I doubt it. The guy got screwed over big time and he doesn't even fully
realize it. Apparently he was working against himself for more than a year.
They delayed the grant and the vesting date. Perhaps even gave him strike
price with his own projected value calculated in the strike price. The whole
point of the stock options is to get a strike price without your own value in
there. Also it's likely there was dilution so the numbers don't add up like
people say, hard to hire 150 people and take 20M without dilution. If that's
the case you need 10 lawyers to watch your back working with gitlab.

~~~
smm2000
He was not screwed. He was contractor and contractors typically do not get any
options at all. After one year, GitLab offered him options as an incentive or
bonus with standard four year vesting - similar to how big companies award you
stock options/RSUs annually.

~~~
vladimirralev
Well, he is under the impression he was a 9th employee and the grant was
delayed. So if this is a bonus for time served then it wasn't made clear to
him what's his standing. It doesn't even make sense to award options at that
point unless they are backdated maybe [1]. And I am willing to bet money that
the nature of the options was misrepresented. Foreign contractors are
particularly vulnerable since they wouldn't have experience with US law and
finance.

I don't know of any companies that award options yearly/bonus, it would be an
incredibly stupid thing to do, must always do RSUs [1]. Options may be
adjusted for dilution or promotions yearly, but that's different. Options are
designed as a tool to get a % proportional to what you add as value. If you
get options with your own work valued in the strike price, those options are
orders of magnitude less valuable than the options you get at sign up. If
gitlab made that clear and he agreed, then I agree gitlab are in the right,
otherwise yes he got screwed over big time.

[1] The problem with delayed or yearly options grants is that workers have a
huge incentive now to lower the strike price for the next valuation. Why would
you work hard against yourself if you are really just increasing the price you
buy at? You'd be much better off to work against the company at this point and
score a lower strike price. Further how can you trust a company that makes you
work against your own interest. Perfect example of lose-lose.

------
johnmarcus
Back in 2003, after i had given my two weeks notice but had not left yet, I
posted on Yahoo finance that i thought the company i worked for "underpaid
employees". That was it. And who is reading Yahoo finance anyway? I was asked
to leave prior to the two weeks ending, and at least one person at where i was
being hired had read it. I deleted it, pronto, and nothing bad happened to me,
but it was definitely a learning experience. people that know you read the
most obscure corners of the internet, and it should never be taken for
granted. i suspect this person will have a hard time finding employment.

~~~
nojvek
So if you openly complain about sexual harassment or employers treating their
employees in an unethical way, no one wants you?

~~~
johnmarcus
Well...yes. For the most part. The ugly reality is that if a company doesn't
hire a known troublemaker, they are less likely to be subject to
troublemaking. If you think companies, startup or otherwise, are going to act
in some altruistic compassionate way toward employees at their own risk, well,
you will probably be disappointed. Like 99% of the time. Especially when most
of the whining sounds very subjective to opinion, as it is here.

------
AvenueIngres
I'm shocked GitLab mustered the courage to tell an employee they "do not have
the company's best interests in mind" after said employee moved to a new city,
with its coworkers, and agrees to put in +10h/day of work. That's all assuming
it is true, which honestly sounds like it is. I have seen that happen.

Pretty disappointed.

------
dkarapetyan
I don't remember who told me this but if you are gonna write an angry letter
then write it but let it sit there for at least a day. If the next day you
come back and still think it is good idea to send it then do it, otherwise
just hit delete.

------
mcv
GitLab is much younger (and at the time smaller) than I thought. I contracted
for a major bank in 2015, and they were in the process of switching from Stash
to GitLab. This sounds like GitLab only just existed at that time. Sounds
crazy for a major bank to switch at such an early stage.

Of course it being open source does help a lot.

------
arjie
This presents a question I've had for a while. Suppose I want a small number
of units (say the 15000 he has here) in a company that's pre-IPO, is there a
standardized agreement for me to buy it from him?

While his past employer probably has right of first refusal on the units,
wouldn't he still come out ahead if I wanted to pay him, say, $10000 for the
15000 units?

Could they have legally pre-emptively blocked the sale? Are there standard
agreements where I could take ownership of the value behind those units
without having full ownership or voting rights?

~~~
habitue
Usually companies have a clause where they have the first right to buy the
stock options back before you offer them for sale to anyone else. Employee
stock options are sort of intended to be NODROP, and if they want to make
shares available on like second market, they need to create a pool of shares
specifically for that.

~~~
arjie
And when they exercise that right, they'd be able to buy them back at the
strike price?

~~~
bofia
No, they would buy it back at the price that the buyer had offered. In your
example, $10000 for the 15000 units.

~~~
arjie
Oh, so secondary markets are still beneficial to participate in if permitted.
So this guy should participate if he can. But you work with the original
company, etc., I suppose. Makes sense.

------
fsiefken
I'm not sure if the commit date was before or after his leave, but perhaps the
termination procedure in the handbook wasn't followed or could in hindsight be
updated? [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/#involun...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-
operations/#involuntary-terminations)

------
safanycom
Glad I read this before we plunged into EE. It will please the Trello lovers.

~~~
lima
Make sure you look at Phabricator, too. It's great and the dev team is highly
professional.

Has a Trello-like work board, good project management and - most importantly -
a sane and highly optimized workflow that works very well for a number of
large companies and open source projects.

I'll just link to another comment of mine:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13939608](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13939608)

Happy to answer any questions! (give it a few hours though)

~~~
chetanahuja
One of the biggest weaknesses of gitlab, that becomes glaring as you add more
and more projects, is that a code repository and a project are considered one
and the same thing. It's quite common to want two or more separate
repositories for an actual development project (e.g. frontend/backend or
client/server etc.).

Of course gitlab's problems arise from the fact that their whole reason for
existence is being an open-source copy of github. (And github is designed
first and foremost as a public facing opensource management tool... which
forces a lot of their product design choices).

Does phabricator work on a different paradigm that's more conducive as an
internal tool to manage dev projects for a single organization?

~~~
lima
Yes, that's exactly how Phabricator works.

Issues, project management and repositories are fully decoupled.

Instead of copying GitHub with all its flaws, Phabricator was built from
scratch for the enterprise usecase.

------
sulam
One thing objectively wrong on this post -- you do not pay tax on the
preferred price unless you got preferred shares (exceptionally unlikely).
Common is worth less so you pay less tax.

------
OutsmartDan
don't burn bridges, bro.

------
annnnd
"Whenever a company takes on VC investment, there are certain expectations
attached to it. It depends a lot on which fund invests on the company, but
more often than not, with this investment comes the expectation that you have
to spend the money as quickly as possible in order to grow, and once you have
spent it, you’ll have to ask for more money again so that you can keep on
spending it, and so on and so forth. All this is necessary to create this
illusion of value, importance, and relevance needed to maintain outrageous
valuations."

This is something all entrepreneurs who are looking for investments should
really understand. VC money dictates huge growth and this is not suitable for
all business opportunities. For some viable businesses taking VC money is akin
to signing their own death sentence.

------
jaboutboul
For the less seasoned, we should all learn from this. There are 2 sides to
every story and I am almost sure that management has a dramatically different
view of what transpired. Not because either is right or wrong, but they seem
to be viewing things through lenses.

That being said, working at a startup is like a marriage, you have to find the
right fit. When he joined Gitlab, it may have been the right fit, but
companies and founders much like everyone else who suddenly comes into money,
often change. Sometimes even thought you love the company, priorities shift
and change. When you start noticing that, it may be time to move on.

Kudos to him on not choosing to cash in his options. Definitely putting his
money where his mind is.

------
SomeHacker44
sytse is very active on HN whenever GitLab comes up, but not at all active on
this thread.

That's almost certainly wise on his part. I know I endeavor never to discuss
(someone other than my personal) employment issues publicly, for myriad legal
and ethical reasons.

------
sh_throwaway
I feel for this guy. I was an extremely early employee at a startup, and when
I left I was faced with the decision of whether or not to buy exercise my
stock options. Eventually I declined to exercise them.

Telling your friends that you don't value the thing you've all been pouring
your life into is tough. It feels like you're insulting them. Esp when there's
still money in the bank and the investors don't know what you know about the
company. But I saw the writing on the wall. The ship was sinking and I
couldn't get them to plug the leak.

Ultimately I decided that I'd rather give up my lottery ticket and be happy.
Turned out I ended up happy and much better off financially and emotionally.
As always there's a relevant xkcd:
[https://xkcd.com/1768/](https://xkcd.com/1768/)

~~~
chrdlu
As elastic_church mentioned below, the firm I work for (The Employee Stock
Option Fund:
[https://employeestockoptions.com](https://employeestockoptions.com)) could
help fund the exercise and help cover potential taxes. We aim to give
employees upside in the startup without them having to invest their own money.

~~~
lutorm
In exchange for what cut? I looked all over your web page without seeing a
number.

~~~
chrdlu
Each deal is custom tailored to the optionee. As you can imagine, some people
have higher strike prices than others and as a result, the economics of the
deal would change. We typically aim to take a minority position because we
want our counterparty to have a vested interest in the shares.

------
FullMtlAlcoholc
OP is sabotaging his future employment prospects by taking the firing so
personally.

For whatever reason it wasn't a good fit. It's not professional at all and
speaks badly on your character and appears immature. It shouldnt be a
revelation that culture changes when you go from 10 to 100 employees.

He doubles down on this by making financial decisions based upon his hurt
feelings, like he still holds a grudge and isn't over it. Who wants to employ
someone like that?

------
jbverschoor
You should be protected by the dutch law. If you are an employee, you
basically cannot be fired if you didn't do anything outrageous.

~~~
brianwawok
I cannot imagine running a business with those rules

~~~
rvschuilenburg
Although someone else already commented that he's a contractor and not an
employee, I still wanted to explain this a bit more.

To me, the most outrageous part was this:

> The cherry on top of this disastrous situation was that throughout the
> entire process I only heard good things from my manager. In total I had 3
> 1-on-1's with him, and even though we discussed the situation and what was
> wrong multiple times, he never, for one moment, gave me the impression that
> my job could be in jeopardy. A few weeks later I was fired.

I'm not a lawyer, but there's no way that would be acceptable under Dutch law
(if he was an employee).

You can definitely fire someone if hey are not performing. But you'd at least
need to warn them about their performance, and allow them time to improve.

------
cocktailpeanuts
I wouldn't write stuff like this if I were him.

Nobody wants to hire someone who tried bashing on his former employer.

------
_pmf_
> Since the company was small enough, the CEO decided to take us all to
> Mountain View, rent a house, and spend a couple of months together.

That sounds incredibly creepy to me (as does the whole astroturfing
communication from GitLabs).

------
marcosdumay
So, Japan also collects taxes on the price of stock you don't sell.

Do most countries do this? I always thought it was a US only thing.

~~~
nandemo
There's nothing particular unusual about Japan's taxation here.

If you buy stock at the stock exchange at $100 and its price increases to $150
but you don't sell it, you don't pay any taxes.

If a company pays you with stock that's worth $100 then you pay income taxes
on it (even if you don't sell it), just as if it were salary. It makes sense
to me. (If the company bought you a car you'd have to pay taxes on it, even if
you didn't sell it; otherwise it would be a great tax loophole.)

With stock options it's similar. You don't pay any taxes when the company
grants you options or when they vest. If the strike price is $10 and you
exercise it when the market price is $100, you pay income taxes on $90
(basically your company paid you $90).

------
ryanbertrand
Can the 83-B election help for taxes? I've done it as a founder not sure about
options?

~~~
petethepig
Doesn't apply here. 83(b) Election only applies to restricted stock. Because
he was fired He can only exercise the part that vested, which is not
restricted anymore.

With stock options you only file 83(b) Election when you do an early exercise.

------
dwwoelfel
How difficult would it be for him to exercise his options and sell the shares
to a 3rd party? Are there any examples of startup employees doing that in the
past?

------
elastic_church
Give them to ESO fund so someone can take the risk to make a buck off of the
options!

Its a good deal and nobody cares about your emotions. (ESO fund just fronts
the capital for you to buy the shares you are entitled to, and makes a
separate contract entitling them to some profits, risk free for you)

Silly to spend that much of your life just to weigh $4000 or so and write a
blog post the circumstances leading up to that decision, when there's
infrastructure to remove the decision making process out of it.

------
angry-hacker
Off topic but I hope this medium.com trend starts to fade. I can't read the
damn thing on my mobile when there are social sharing icons AND green open in
app icon floating, taking room on my small screen.

Why would I want your app or open it on app? It's s damn simple blog not some
kind of webapp.

Svbtl.com was also a thing here time ago, why did that platform become uncool?

~~~
syshum
>>I can't read the damn thing on my mobile

Continuing the off topic nature....I am still at a loss as to why people want
to read websites on a mobile device, even if you have a 10in tablet is
terrible experience IMO...

I will take my 3 27in monitors over tiny phone display all day long... Medium
looks fine for me...

~~~
angry-hacker
I read hn every night in my bed before I go to sleep. My sleeping pill kicks
in in 38 min and that's the time I use for HN for the past 5 years.

I agree a monitor is better, especially 3 and 27in,but I won't take them to
bed with me. :)

------
winteriscoming
Reading the article it just feels like the author and the company just drifted
apart over time. Something that happens very often in life. When the number of
people involved in a certain thing are few, their goals and purpose typically
are aligned. Over time, as more and more people get involved, it's practically
impossible to have all of them aligned to the same goal and expect their
purpose to be the same.

After a while, some of the early passionate team members have to compromise
with the situation or move on to something else.

------
sauronlord
He made an emotional finacial decision

------
winteriscoming
>> I left out acquisitions on purpose because GitLab is not really suited for
an acquisition, due to the remote-only work model.

Didn't know remote work would play a role in this matter. Is that true?

~~~
pooper
> Didn't know remote work would play a role in this matter. Is that true?

Not sure about acquisitions but in my uninformed opinion, I assume remote
first made an acquihire somewhat less likely what I saw as a feature as gitlab
tries to get enterprise customers.

------
winteriscoming
The article states he received those options as a contractor. Is this common?
I was under the impression that only employees are entitled to stock options.
If it's possible to get these options as a contractor, what really
differentiates the two practically?

~~~
phlo
Using what information one can gather from their salary calculator [1, 2], the
distinction seems to be mostly related to the staffer's location. Staff from
US, UK, NL, IN, CN, BE are hired as employees (with a salary multiple ranging
from 0.66 to 1.00) of Gitlab Inc., while staff from all other locations is
hired as contractors of Gitlab B.V., using a multiple of 1.17 (probably to
make up for the lack of employee benefits).

I have no relation to Gitlab other than having had a look at some of their job
postings, so please do take this information with a grain of salt. Happy to
have someone more familiar with the details correct any mistakes.

[1] visible on many job ads, like [https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/security-
specialist/](https://about.gitlab.com/jobs/security-specialist/) [2] salary
data is at
[https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json](https://about.gitlab.com/salary/data.json)

------
educar
I disagree. I appreciate his courage in posting this. As an employer, this
won't stop me at all from hiring him. I would definitely think about hiring
you though, specially being so condescending as if you have seen it all.

~~~
dang
This crosses into personal attack. That's not allowed here, regardless of how
wrong someone else may be, so please don't do it in HN comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html)

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14038453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14038453).

~~~
educar
Just saw this. Yeah, I agree with what you said. Won't happen again.

------
simlevesque
Please resist commenting about how something is boring.

~~~
dang
urda was quoting the site guidelines, because the GP had broken them.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14038415](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14038415)
and marked it off-topic.

------
gkoberger
As someone who knows the CEO of GitLab, I can say nothing but amazing things
about him. (Even reading through this article, you'll find nothing in it that
casts a negative light on the CEO.)

I'm sure there's a ton left out, and this seems like a bitter hit piece rather
than a well-thought-out, balanced critique of a company.

~~~
danpalmer
> Even reading through this article, you'll find nothing in it that casts a
> negative light on the CEO.

I definitely got a negative light about the CEO from this, and that doesn't
include the poor culture which is arguably the CEO's responsibility.

~~~
andrewbinstock
>...which is arguably the CEO's responsibility.

...which is _unarguably_ the CEO's responsibility. FTFY.

