

Ask HN: Will folks getting hired at Twitter right now "get rich"? - iamnotarobot

Assuming they ultimately end up a success, at this point Twitter will either have a colossal exit or IPO. When a growing company has a valuation in billions, does employee #200 get rich? There are many variables, but I'd love to understand how equity is distributed in a fast growing startup and what kind of value it ends up having.
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aristus
I know nothing about Twitter, but in general it's simple. If there are 199
employees, you can't give the 200th more than 0.5%, else that would be unfair,
right? That person would have to be something really special, like a CEO or
VP, to expect more when coming to the party so late. So that's the absolute
maximum ceiling.

Usually about 10 to 30% of the company is reserved for employees (the rest
goes to the founders and investors --- mostly investors, by this stage). So
employee #200's theoretical maximum is down to 0.15% or 0.05%. And she's not
going to be the last. Over time more investments and employees mean you get
diluted more and more.

So do the math yourself, but remember that there are a lot of other factors,
like taxes, specific skills, etc etc. If you get acquired, it's not as though
they write big novelty checks and hand them out like it's a golf tournament.
You exchange startup stock (some of it unvested!) for other-company stock.

Risk, impact, autonomy and reward are remarkably correlated to how early you
join. But if you are in it for just one of those four things you might have a
hard time adjusting to the rest.

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awa
Afaik, most pre-IPO/acquisition employees get attractive amount of money but
you can't really retire with the money earned.

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dnsworks
Twitter has taken in what, $160m in funding over 5 rounds. Thanks to
liquidation preferences, it is probably a safe bet to say that if Twitter gets
sold in 1 year for $5bn, an employee who started yesterday would see enough to
put a down payment on a studio condo in Fresno.

A friend who has worked there for a while saw like 15 basis points. This was
before the $100m in funding. I'd be surprised if someone were to see 1/5th of
that now.

Perspective? Google took in like $25m before their IPO.

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andyjdavis
I would think that after so many rounds of funding liquidation preferences
would make a massive difference. Guessing that the various VCs have made sure
they get paid a nice big return on their investment first. Whatever is left is
then eaten up as you move down the food chain of preferences paying people
what they're owed. Eventually you reach the last in line, the rank and file
employees. By that point there may well be little or no money left.

It all depends on the terms of the funding and the theoretical sale price. In
summary, I don't know.

