Ask HN: How much did you make from your startup's IPO?

63 points by henrikm85 7 years ago | 20 comments

It would be great to know how early you joined (Employee number X) or similar context.

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.

jeffshek 7 years ago | |

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYt5yuiGk9E&feature=youtu.be...

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

luckystartup 7 years ago | | |

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.

mm202018 7 years ago |

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!

jzl 7 years ago | |

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...

mm202018 7 years ago | | |

Uber started awarding RSUs at end of 2014

randomacct3847 7 years ago |

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).

emit_time 7 years ago | |

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 7 years ago | | |

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)

lewisinc 7 years ago |

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 :)

baccredited 7 years ago |

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.

technofiend 7 years ago | |

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.

baccredited 7 years ago | | |

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.

tmp192489 7 years ago | |

The current tech boom is nothing like the dot-com bubble...

jdsully 7 years ago | | |

Uber and Lyft giving out dollar rides for $0.90 with almost no competitive moat. Pretty similar situation I think.

thrwawyequity 7 years ago |

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.

cm2012 7 years ago |

Around 10 grand.