
Ask HN: How much did you make from your startup's IPO? - henrikm85
It would be great to know how early you joined (Employee number X) or similar context.
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luckystartup
I was one of the first 5 employees at a YC unicorn. They haven't had an IPO
yet, but it's getting closer. My original offer was for 0.5% of the company,
but I didn't vest all of my shares before leaving. The shares are currently
worth about $1.5M, and I'm hoping that they will be worth about $3-5M after
the IPO and lockup period.

My salary was $120K and I relocated to SF from a different country, so I don't
really feel like I took a pay cut. But the cost of living was extremely high,
so the money didn't go as far as I thought it would. Especially because my
spouse wasn't able to work on a dependent visa.

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jeffshek
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYt5yuiGk9E&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYt5yuiGk9E&feature=youtu.be&t=19m50s)

Minor frustration: Someone in the <5 employee count deserves more equity. Yes
that % is pretty common, but I think that's wrong.

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luckystartup
Thanks, that was a great video!

I actually think the 0.5% was very fair, or even generous. I didn't have much
startup experience before that, and it was my first "real" job. They were also
taking a big gamble with the relocation and immigration lawyer fees.

The other thing is that more equity probably wouldn't have motivated me to
stay longer, unless I was a cofounder. I really didn't enjoy working for the
company. I felt like I didn't really have any impact on anything, the company
didn't really need me, and I just didn't like the company culture very much.
So I tried to estimate how many shares I would need to hit my early retirement
target ($3M), and I left after I had vested enough shares.

I knew that the company would be very successful, and I left a huge amount of
money on the table, but I have zero regrets. I've been much happier since I
left, and it's been much more fun to work on my own startups.

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mm202018
I worked at Uber starting in 2015 for 2 years. Not going to give numbers and I
have not been following secondary markets but the company was already valued
at $70b or so back then and I don’t think there’s been meaningful movement in
the valuation since then. Point is people who joined even 4 years ago aren’t
exactly making a huge multiple of their initial grant.

Lyft’s IPO bodes well though for Uber stock. We’ll see soon enough!

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jzl
Good point, but properly priced ISOs should have a discount of about 2/3rd the
value of the preferred stock (as determined by the previous Series-* funding
round) at the time of grant. So even if the valuation hasn't changed, most
peoples' options should still mint a pretty penny if they were priced
according to typical practice. I don't know anything about Uber.

For reference, "What’s a Fair 409A Discount?":
[https://www.sethlevine.com/archives/2018/08/whats-a-
fair-409...](https://www.sethlevine.com/archives/2018/08/whats-a-
fair-409a-discount.html)

~~~
mm202018
Uber started awarding RSUs at end of 2014

~~~
jzl
Ohh, right, RSUs. Never been at a pre-IPO company that granted those. So, if I
understand correctly, people will be getting the full value of their grant,
you're just saying that people won't be getting huge _multipliers_ of their
grant. Based on various blog posts from around 2015-2016 I'd guess the average
grant for a non-junior engineer was in the $1 million range.

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randomacct3847
No IPO yet, but participated in a tender offer last year to sell a portion of
my stock (no long working there). Employee 13 (jr role), value of 4 year grant
(at time of offer) $1.05m at a “low” unicorn valuation (e.g a bit over $1b).

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emit_time
How much of a hypothetical salary cut did you take to work there as opposed to
other places, do you mind talking about your salary history?

~~~
randomacct3847
Not sure if there’s a comparable role I can point to. This was a non-technical
role and my second job out of school (started a few years ago). Salary was
definitely lower than a SWE job or PM job (my current role)

Quite honestly I just got very lucky and would be surprised if it happened to
me again. The company is doing better than I expected and would expect it to
raise at a higher valuation soon (sold the bare minimum I had to to
participate)

~~~
quickthrower2
Well done.

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lewisinc
This is an interesting question: I feel like it's made under an assumption
that there's some target number that responses should average out towards. Or
maybe there's some personal validation behind the question. Either way, I hope
you've all made enough that you're comfortable and happy with your lives :)

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baccredited
I was around employee 100. Had options that were worth about 1.5 million at
the peak, then the internet bubble popped and by the time I was fully vested
and able to sell it was maybe 1/10th that--$150K or so.

In hindsight, I could have shorted the stock at the peak to lock in the price
of the unvested shares.

The whole experience makes me think most engineers should value options at
basically zero. Save an aggressive part of your regular salary so you can
retire by 50 years old. If you get a windfall great, if you don't you are
working on a strategy to become wealthy with a near 100% success rate.

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technofiend
Not an IPO but I was hired by a company that was supposed to extend me an
offer including stock options, unfortunately there was miscommunication about
shares vs options, netting me 1/100th of what I expected. I was so angry I
seriously considered taking a short position against the original amount of
stock I was promised, but in the end it just didn't feel right to bet against
my employer. A year later and their stock had dropped from $43 to 50 cents
which would have netted a huge windfall. The money would have been nice but I
don't regret standing on principle.

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baccredited
I agree with you.

My short would not have been a bet against my employer, more about being
satisfied with turning paper gains into locked in, real money gains.

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marketgod
In many cases you aren't allowed to short employer stock, it's sometimes in
the employment contract you sign. In other cases, shorting your employer can
get you investigated for insider trading. Also, your employer might fire you.
Probably want to talk to an attorney before doing that in the future.

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thrwawyequity
throwaway for obv. reasons. employee ~30. Company IPO'd at over a 1B
valuation. Post taxes, I got about $700k, and have another $1.2M in pending
subsequent grants and RSUs that still has to be taxed and the options are more
expensive. I'm hoping to pocket about $400k from that. I started as a mid-
level developer making about $70k a year, and I've grown a lot. I'm still
there. Still a developer. I make $190k/yr now. Had I gone straight into a
FAANG, I think I'm ahead now, but for the longest time, I was behind. Now
equity keeps me here (aside from actually really liking where I work). If I
were to leave, I'd be tossing out 1.2M! That all vests over the next three
years. So I really make more like 190k + 400k a year. No complaints. But I got
a winning lotto ticket with this job.

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cm2012
Around 10 grand.

