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akadajet posted:I thought people really loved working at valve in the past. i remember reading a thing where someone really did not dig the structureless vibe but thats understandable and very different than what people think of when they hear "toxic work environment"
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Jan 11, 2024 18:49
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From what I've heard it's not that everyone at Valve is miserable, but there's a definite in-crowd, and if you do anything to cross them, you're going to have a really bad time.
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Jan 11, 2024 18:55
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ultrafilter posted:From what I've heard it's not that everyone at Valve is miserable, but there's a definite in-crowd, and if you do anything to cross them, you're going to have a really bad time. right but this is not really that different from anywhere else, with the exception that the in-crowd is informally rather than formally specified
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Jan 11, 2024 19:18
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There are a handful of people who ate the valve chili and went crazy and if you're looking for a reason to dislike valve they have plenty but I think the real thing you don't want to be for them is, as always, a contractor
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Jan 11, 2024 19:19
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I remember reading a story about a woman being personally recruited by gaben to run some sort of VR (?) thing and after she joined, she was ignored/isolated by him (?) and got fired. Can't seem to find it online now.
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Jan 11, 2024 19:57
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ultrafilter posted:Valve's been doing that for a while and they're famously ineffective and toxic. Strange to call the multi billion dollar studio ineffective but hey whatever gets you through the day. They've been just as prolific as any other company, just not with what all the boomers want, half life 3. Might be toxic though they do shill linux 
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Jan 11, 2024 20:11
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Mantle posted:I remember reading a story about a woman being personally recruited by gaben to run some sort of VR (?) thing and after she joined, she was ignored/isolated by him (?) and got fired. Can't seem to find it online now. jeri ellsworth https://www.wired.com/2013/07/wireduk-valve-jeri-ellsworth/ the problem with valve is that you either have to be willing to work on projects run by other folks, or you have to be able to convince folks to work on your project if you join with the intent of leading a project, you have to sell that project to the other engineers or it dies.
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Jan 12, 2024 00:14
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i interviewed at valve for a network gig many years ago and it was so loving weird some softball stuff generic stuff like "design an elevator", but some of the interviewers really seemed like they didn't understand the topic they were interviewing for. in particular i remember one troubleshooting question where they were reading from a script about "a user in germany is intermittently unable to do %s" how do you troubleshoot it? every troubleshooting step i responded with involving logs, tracing, or error rates was met with "uhhh, the problem document doesn't specify" lunch at el gaucho was fun tho
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Jan 12, 2024 00:20
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i had a really good time watching an all-engineer company interview its first UX dude. No one had any idea wtf to ask him, it was super painful. They had him back FIVE TIMES and were thinking of asking him for another when someone with a brain said "if we couldn't figure it out in 5, a 6th wont help, just make a decision"
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Jan 12, 2024 00:23
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never taken a job in seattle but ate at el gaucho w/ other peeps money like 3 times now
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Jan 12, 2024 00:25
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outhole surfer posted:i interviewed at valve for a network gig many years ago and it was so loving weird i would like the occasional work work conducting interviews a lot more if you ever got actual prep time for it.
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Jan 12, 2024 09:53
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Its a Rolex posted:Is there any red flag outright to very flat org structures? All organizations have two kinds of political structures: formal and informal. Formal structures are the big org chart with ceo at the top and then a mass of middle managers with us plebs at the bottom. Informal structures can be whatever. If you have no formal structure there's still an informal one. People with political pull in an organization are then in control. Alternatively Danish companies often tries to say "oh yeah we're a flat structure" and it just means you can call people by their first name no matter what.
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Jan 12, 2024 22:23
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bob dobbs is dead posted:this is what you post after that This is it right here
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Jan 13, 2024 00:57
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I'm waiting for the founder to get back to me to schedule time to discuss the offer they put together. Their current stage is seed, looking to start series A soon, and the equity offer seems way off to me. In the initial offer email, the founder mentions I can trade salary for equity (I will not), and I think they're hoping I'll either cave on salary (it's low but palatable rn) or give in to nearly no equity. Is there any good resource to reference when I ask for an improved equity offer? I have level set in the past by this: https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-compensation/sections/typical-employee-equity-levels which tracked with my previous experience. But if there's another, more definitive reference people like, I'll take it. The initial number has left a bad taste in my mouth, and I realize it's their job to extract as much work for as low a price, but "lower your salary for more equity" feels disrespectful
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Jan 16, 2024 16:00
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imo I would not bet a cent on making it to Series A this year, the climate for startups is bad and the A round in particular just keeps getting worse
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Jan 16, 2024 21:31
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looks a lot more like "back to 2019" to me they still had venture in the time of 25% interest rates, they were just absolutely nuts about it
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Jan 16, 2024 21:48
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people used to create absolute dogshit startups ideas with incredibly idiotic valuations that would require owning 100% of the market and tripling that to even make money and they aren't as aggressively anymore, though the AI space is sure going to get some money doing that.
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Jan 16, 2024 21:52
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MononcQc posted:people used to create absolute dogshit startups ideas with incredibly idiotic valuations that would require owning 100% of the market and tripling that to even make money and they aren't as aggressively anymore, though the AI space is sure going to get some money doing that. its going back to 80% of them being like that instead of 99% of them being like that, is the point
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Jan 16, 2024 21:54
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we're gonna use AI to find new market growth opportunities no humans can foresee; juicero's back, baby!
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Jan 16, 2024 22:00
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Its a Rolex posted:I'm waiting for the founder to get back to me to schedule time to discuss the offer they put together. Their current stage is seed, looking to start series A soon, and the equity offer seems way off to me. In the initial offer email, the founder mentions I can trade salary for equity (I will not), and I think they're hoping I'll either cave on salary (it's low but palatable rn) or give in to nearly no equity. I'm a founder who ahs sat on the other sides of this discussion at this stage. Post if you have more ?s and I'm happy to answer them to the thread. That graph roughly tracks with my expectations but that can very wildly based on the circumstances of the startup and offer. I think theres nothing disrespectful about offering to lower the salary for more equity. Thats a valid and straightforward negotiating position to take. You can hardline back if you have a good BATNA and say no, if you want me to work there I'd love to butI need $X + Y% Equity. I really want to emphasize that a bizzare set of factors can be at play here. You can get fairly creative to deal with some of those factors so it behooves you to ask if you wanna negotiate. For example, you could negotiate a long earn out or backloaded set of shares. If they're pre Series A the "good" exit is 5+ years away. So saying yea sure Ill take Y% vesting out over 4 years but on year 5 I want Z% extra or an acceleration of any shares/options if there's an exit before that. (That of course has its own risks, but it positions you as thinking about the company's long term success.)
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Jan 16, 2024 22:30
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Thanks, CFP. My BATNA is good enough, and they know this, so I feel comfortable attempting the conversation. Requesting the equity increase with a longer time to vest, or an extra vesting event at year 5, or something along those lines sounds like it would be effective to assuage concerns they have expressed to me. What is the proper way to ask about how my shares vest w/r/t the company being acquired before I have fully vested? Is this something that can also change, or is that fixed from company policy? Similarly, is the strike price a reasonable number to ask for? Presumably the price is low enough I can exercise as they vest, but confirming that would be helpful. I don't remember when that number was revealed to me the last time around.
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Jan 17, 2024 03:12
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don't forget the early exercise option. ask if you can early exercise on day 1, then file an 83b and pay taxes on the diff between strike and fmv (probably $0). bonus points if the company still a qsbs and you can start your five year timer right away in some wild situations, the company might even offer you a loan to exercise your options that is secured by this stock, so if the company goes tits up, you don't lose a penny.
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Jan 17, 2024 03:30
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Its a Rolex posted:1) What is the proper way to ask about how my shares vest w/r/t the company being acquired before I have fully vested? 1) This is called acceleration and it’s important IMO look up single trigger and double trigger acceleration. Having acceleration after a 1 year cliff would be an important term. 2) It depends, but likely they can create a contract with you that specifies acceleration terms unless they’re prohibited by some other company agreement. 3) If they haven’t raised a Series A, they have likely not created an option pool, which means they might not offer you options in the same way. How Pre Series A options are done can be all over the map. That said they should have a 409a valuation and if you know the % of the company and the valuation and the number of shares you’ll know the strike price. Personally, I would be comfortable knowing simply the 409a valuation because you will then know that you just need a multiple of that in order to make the options worth exercising. You should also check with them that the options you’re getting will be priced at the current 409a valuation and not the series a valuation. Those numbers are likely very very different and could make a 2-10x difference in your return. It’d be a worst of both world to get diluted at series a AND get worse pricing. E: Clarified, added detail CarForumPoster fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 03:34
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Is "how many shares comprise the company" a question that it's reasonable to expect an answer to in negotiations? I have my share number and a percentage, so I backed out the total number of shares. This got some pushback that my number isn't right, but the answer is more complicated than just a single number, and then the phrase "employee equity pool" got thrown around with another percentage and the "lawyers" were invoked a lot. My fear is that I get told my stake was relative to some smaller proportion of the whole, which the founder seemed to be "concerned might be the case." If this is the case, and they correct it, it feels like an enormous red flag and I'd have many colleagues who didn't catch this sleight of hand. These seem like reasonable things to expect a straight answer on in a 1:1 with a founder. Am I right to feel like they're being purposefully opaque? Are these questions really that difficult? When extending an offer it's concerning that the person extending the offer [claims] to not know where the numbers come from or really have a good grasp on the financial state. Last time I spoke with a founder for a job I took they were pretty straight up about my stake and the strike price, so I'm a bit on edge
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Jan 17, 2024 22:07
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cap table is one of the most contentious things to ask about, and its completely colorable that they tell you everything or they tell you absolutely nothing. ive even seen both in peeps negotiating in good faith
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Jan 17, 2024 22:11
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I'm not asking for the full cap table, I would expect pushback on that A simple "is this X% of the whole company, or X% of the employee equity pool?" is all I asked, and couldn't get an answer. They're the ones who brought up that this was even a possibility
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Jan 17, 2024 22:18
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Its a Rolex posted:I'm not asking for the full cap table, I would expect pushback on that yes, totally reasonable to ask how many shares are outstanding. also totally reasonable to be told you aren't privvy to that
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Jan 17, 2024 22:45
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well you should already value the equity at $0, but especially if they won't tell you how many shares there are, now you should definitely value the equity at $0. even if you did get the answer, "oh it's 2% of the whole company", yeah sure that's what it is now, before the next few rounds dilute it and dilute it and dilute it again
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Jan 17, 2024 22:57
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I am clearly missing something, and not trying to be a dunce here. I am asking this in good faith. I do not understand how the following question does not have a simple enough and innocuous answer: "You offered me X% of something which you allege works out to Y shares. The total number of shares by my calculation, according to those values, is roughly Y/0.X. This is equivalent to me getting a payout of X% of whatever we sell the company for assuming there's no dilution modulo taxes and all that nonsense. Is this calculation correct, or is X% actually X% of Z% of 100%, and my payout is (X*Z)%?" What harm is there in telling me what the total volume X is a fraction of, especially given that I know Y? The total number of shares is entirely arbitrary beyond a scaling factor for how much ownership a single share confers. I am not asking how many shares does the founder hold, nor how many shares are allocated to be given away in the future. For all I care there are two bins, mine and everything else, and in order to make an informed decision, I need to know the ratio between the size of these bins. What is the danger in informing me, transparently, of the size of the other bin (or an equivalent value)? Either it's redundant with X% and count Y, or my stake is not equivalent to X% in the common understanding of that phrase
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Jan 17, 2024 22:59
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if a startup tells you "we are granting you 2% equity" when what they actually mean to say is "we are granting you 2% of the employee options pool, which we didn't tell you how big it is but you can assume it's 10-20% of the whole company", that is absolute bullshit and i would push back too. nobody would expect that the former really means the latter. words mean things, 2% does not mean 0.2%
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Jan 17, 2024 23:04
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seems like startup equity is designed to just gently caress you over
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Jan 17, 2024 23:08
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e- misread DC's post
Its a Rolex fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Jan 17, 2024 |
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Jan 17, 2024 23:15
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what number hire would you be? 0.2% is perfectly reasonable for number 250 and not for number 3
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Jan 17, 2024 23:31
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id be in first 20
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Jan 17, 2024 23:37
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why do recruiters ask for salary if the job posting already has a range in it? are they just hoping people might not notice that? or that there are suckers who give a low number?
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Jan 17, 2024 23:39
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Its a Rolex posted:id be in first 20 youre gettin screwed for 0.2 lol
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Jan 17, 2024 23:44
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bob dobbs is dead posted:youre gettin screwed for 0.2 lol unless, obviously, they're simply paying well. which absolutely can happen in a startup of 20. though admittedly op asking is a bad sign on that front.
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Jan 17, 2024 23:53
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Its a Rolex posted:id be in first 20 oof tryin to screw the first few employees is not a good omen
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Jan 18, 2024 00:45
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qsvui posted:why do recruiters ask for salary if the job posting already has a range in it? are they just hoping people might not notice that? or that there are suckers who give a low number? there certainly are suckers who give a low number, but really they're trying to start a negotiation. they've given you a range, not a number, the first number said still has an anchoring effect.
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Jan 18, 2024 02:32
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If they can’t help me figure out the value or ratio and it’s a mystery box, then I’d tell them I have to treat it as mostly worthless and their total offer isn’t that attractive anymore then, and let them see what they can do about that statement. if they say nothing then yeah they also think it’s okay for you to feel it’s worthless. but also I never did pushback of that specific kind nor ever got that early at a startup so my advice is dubious on that level. Otoh I got got accepting options in the last at a company that was forever private where they floated a bit value but dividends were tiny and they never bought back anything and I wish I had pushed back. just feels that if they’re not morons/assholes they’ll be able to deal with the argument.
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Jan 18, 2024 05:00
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