The accusations of it being a scam are speculative for sure, but they come from a relatable place: the inability to understand why creators would agree to take on "shadow equity" while a small handful of creators get actual real equity.
It sounds like a few creators can sell the equity that is built by many creators at any time, but that all the other creators can only realize their equity if and when the company exits.
If someone bought tickets to a steam ship that stipulated that in the event of an imminent iceberg collision, they can only get on the life-boats after a small group of people ransacked the ship and left on the first life-boat, I might assume that they'd been scammed to. But perhaps they were just desperate or didn't think icebergs were a risk. Regardless, I just know I wouldn't buy that ticket.
I can't really figure out how the stakes of your analogy are supposed to map to the Nebula situation. Nebula is a source of income. If it implodes, everyone still goes home.
And who would be buying shares if the company is sinking so badly? How does the ransacking work in the analogy, and does it even make a difference?
The part that sounds scary is that they're on the "first" life boat and everyone has to wait until "after" they're done ransacking, and that part doesn't sound like it maps to the real world at all.
But backing up to the more general sense, shadow equity is a reasonable way to do the profit sharing but you have to have real equity somewhere. Accepting that there are two tiers makes sense to me. And the reason it's a "small handful" with the realer equity is because those people either built the company or paid lots of money to the people that built the company, that's pretty fair.
>a few creators can sell the equity that is built by many creators at any time, but that all the other creators can only realize their equity if and when the company exits.
That's misleading because an exit (i.e., a sale or an IPO) is usually the only way that owners of real equity in a startup can cash out.
It sounds like a few creators can sell the equity that is built by many creators at any time, but that all the other creators can only realize their equity if and when the company exits.
If someone bought tickets to a steam ship that stipulated that in the event of an imminent iceberg collision, they can only get on the life-boats after a small group of people ransacked the ship and left on the first life-boat, I might assume that they'd been scammed to. But perhaps they were just desperate or didn't think icebergs were a risk. Regardless, I just know I wouldn't buy that ticket.