

What is their real motive? - williegross

Let&#x27;s say you joined a tech incubator.  Let&#x27;s say you decided that it was in the best interest of your company to depart towards the end.<p>Let&#x27;s say when reaching out to deliver your incubators&#x27; stock certificates they declined to accept them and preferred to offer you a promissory note on really generous terms...<p>Would you smell a rat?  Why would they not want the stock certificates?<p>One may say; &quot;they don&#x27;t want them because they will be worthless as you&#x27;re likely to fail - especially without their support.&quot;<p>Ok, but if the stock certs are worthless, why invest in high power lawyers to draw up a promissory note where the &quot;startup doomed for failure&quot; will have no chance of paying the money back anyway?<p>All I can come up with is this; a) bound by the terms of the initial offer letter, their providing you with the outstanding balance of services they failed to deliver is more expensive than just drawing a note b) maintaining oversight of their investment in a startup doomed for failure is more expensive than issuing a note...<p>Really want to make sure I&#x27;m thinking about this from all angles.<p>Please - I welcome you guys&#x27; thoughts.
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deanfranks
Stock certificates may also be subject to dilution at the whim of the majority
shareholders.

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sbierwagen
That, or if the startup gets acquihired, the purchasing entity may just pay
all the cofounders directly and declare the value of the stock to be zero.

