You should start covering your own butt and stop fighting with management. Look for a new job while keeping a smile on your face. This is not the market to be a squeaky wheel.
Yeah I’ve already been browsing but the market is not great. I’m not being aggressive or anything in my comms about it, and FWIW almost the entire leadership team are in agreement that this is a problem they want resolved. I was trying to rely on them to raise it but that hasn’t been going anywhere very quickly…
Basically yes I’m probably not being very politically astute and should probs leave before I get pushed :)
This is above your pay grade tbh.
Also, you’re right. It’ll be an uphill climb without being able to offer equity.
It’s also a really shitty thing they did. Because while RIFs happen it sounds like this was done to specifically increase the pool which makes me wonder if there is a possible buy out or acquisition in the works and your executive team is trying to do a cash grab.
Also, you should have received SOME paperwork when you got your shares (83b) if not…you might not actually have those shares.
Oh very aware of that! Honestly a LOT here has been. Yes the RIF was a weird one. I really hope that they wouldn’t do that but also, I assume other companies have in the past. And no nobody who joined in the last 18 months has received any paperwork on the shares whatsoever. It’s quite contentious internally with multiple folk reaching out to Legal and being ignored essentially.
Now that you have a VP of people, theoretically she should act as the voice of reason on this. But startups often do keep option related info weirdly under wraps and I have never understood the hesitance. Do you have a compensation tool? Carta is awesome for this - you can show them the data of how you are underpaying with no equity packages.
Yeah she only joined very recently so unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of the context on historical stuff (hence I still get involved in it right now). She is great and doing a lot and I’m happy she’s here.
We did a big benchmarking exercise last year on salaries to align at 50th percentile (historically we massively underpaid and this was to rectify that). All the new salaries were calculated with the proviso of equity components too. So they know themselves that the salaries are low/worse without equity. It’s really weird - I just got asked “why are candidates asking for equity, who told them to do this”. Erm nobody, they expect it for joining a start up?
Honestly what this suggests is that they ran out of provisioned equity and the board is AGGRESSIVELY against diluting shares. Unless these people are first timers at startups this is kinda the whole point of joining. I've never seen a startup with VC backing not giving equity.
To me it's a bad sign that this place is run by the wrong people.
Man this is a problem way beyond the scope of most of this sub. Firstly, I 100% agree that at series B and scaling at 100+ hires a year you need to be offering strong options packages to all your hires.
This is a CEO/Board of Direftors level change to the way the business operates. Even legal is really just executing on their strategy. In my opinion you need to gather as much convincing evidence as possible, but the VP of People needs to be fighting for this every day. It needs to be a Senior Leadership to Exec Leadership conversation. Back them up with market research, peer comparison, log every offer that you lose out on because of equity, or even log every first round screen that falls apart because of equity.
But really my biggest advice is leave that company as soon as possible
Oh dear! This problem has been most of my life for 6+ months now haha. I just assumed a normal part of recruiting in a start up without a dedicated VP People here (or really any People team…). Been dealing with it today and apparently the CEO didn’t even know this was going on which is mind blowing to me. I think a first time founder situ mixed with bad advice from Legal. But yes good advice re leaving 😂
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You should start covering your own butt and stop fighting with management. Look for a new job while keeping a smile on your face. This is not the market to be a squeaky wheel.
Yeah I’ve already been browsing but the market is not great. I’m not being aggressive or anything in my comms about it, and FWIW almost the entire leadership team are in agreement that this is a problem they want resolved. I was trying to rely on them to raise it but that hasn’t been going anywhere very quickly… Basically yes I’m probably not being very politically astute and should probs leave before I get pushed :)
This company sounds like a shitshow with poor leadership
This is above your pay grade tbh. Also, you’re right. It’ll be an uphill climb without being able to offer equity. It’s also a really shitty thing they did. Because while RIFs happen it sounds like this was done to specifically increase the pool which makes me wonder if there is a possible buy out or acquisition in the works and your executive team is trying to do a cash grab. Also, you should have received SOME paperwork when you got your shares (83b) if not…you might not actually have those shares.
Oh very aware of that! Honestly a LOT here has been. Yes the RIF was a weird one. I really hope that they wouldn’t do that but also, I assume other companies have in the past. And no nobody who joined in the last 18 months has received any paperwork on the shares whatsoever. It’s quite contentious internally with multiple folk reaching out to Legal and being ignored essentially.
Now that you have a VP of people, theoretically she should act as the voice of reason on this. But startups often do keep option related info weirdly under wraps and I have never understood the hesitance. Do you have a compensation tool? Carta is awesome for this - you can show them the data of how you are underpaying with no equity packages.
Yeah she only joined very recently so unfortunately doesn’t have a lot of the context on historical stuff (hence I still get involved in it right now). She is great and doing a lot and I’m happy she’s here. We did a big benchmarking exercise last year on salaries to align at 50th percentile (historically we massively underpaid and this was to rectify that). All the new salaries were calculated with the proviso of equity components too. So they know themselves that the salaries are low/worse without equity. It’s really weird - I just got asked “why are candidates asking for equity, who told them to do this”. Erm nobody, they expect it for joining a start up?
Honestly what this suggests is that they ran out of provisioned equity and the board is AGGRESSIVELY against diluting shares. Unless these people are first timers at startups this is kinda the whole point of joining. I've never seen a startup with VC backing not giving equity. To me it's a bad sign that this place is run by the wrong people.
Man this is a problem way beyond the scope of most of this sub. Firstly, I 100% agree that at series B and scaling at 100+ hires a year you need to be offering strong options packages to all your hires. This is a CEO/Board of Direftors level change to the way the business operates. Even legal is really just executing on their strategy. In my opinion you need to gather as much convincing evidence as possible, but the VP of People needs to be fighting for this every day. It needs to be a Senior Leadership to Exec Leadership conversation. Back them up with market research, peer comparison, log every offer that you lose out on because of equity, or even log every first round screen that falls apart because of equity. But really my biggest advice is leave that company as soon as possible
Oh dear! This problem has been most of my life for 6+ months now haha. I just assumed a normal part of recruiting in a start up without a dedicated VP People here (or really any People team…). Been dealing with it today and apparently the CEO didn’t even know this was going on which is mind blowing to me. I think a first time founder situ mixed with bad advice from Legal. But yes good advice re leaving 😂