Company sold for $150 millions. Early employees makes/earns nothing.

"A great story from our admired friend Jason from SaaStr. A must-read for people working for stock options.

So a sales exec I've know for a while reached out to me. His old startup was acquired for $150,000,000 -- but he made nothing. He asked me what likely happened.

I didn't know too much, but I went down a list:

• Did they raise a ton? Like $150m? :). If so, there might be nothing left for employees. But no. They raised about$20m.

• Was the headline number exaggerated? Was it not really $150m? No, he said, another ex-account exec he knew made$200,000.

Aha. We were getting somewhere. Another similar exec made $200k on the deal, but the AE I knew made$0. Hmmm.

I only had so much time, but it didn't quite add up. I just told him to email the company and dig in more.

The response was ""your stock options expired"".

Aha. Of course, this happens all the time. Folks have a tough decision when they leave a start-up whether or not to exercise options.

It turned out though his friend that had made $200,000 also didn't exercise his options. But -- his friend had gotten an extension of time to exercise.

Why? The difference was his friend left on great terms with the VP of Sales, who went to bat for him. But the AE I knew quit on so-so terms, with no notice. So his options expired shortly after he left, per their terms.

It was just a reminder. Go out strong. Build bridges on the way out, don't burn them. It generally pays off, even if it's not clear at the time.

A ways back at a SaaStr digital event Jeff Lawson, founding CEO of Twilio shared a similar story. He'd previously been CTO at StubHub -- but there had been 2 CTOs at StubHub. The other one made a ton, he made almost nothing. The difference? Jeff was honest. He wasn't 100% committed. He didn't make that mistake the next time."

Author

AiUTOMATING PEOPLE, ABN ASIA was founded by people with deep roots in academia, with work experience in the US, Holland, Hungary, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Vietnam. ABN Asia is where academia and technology meet opportunity. With our cutting-edge solutions and competent software development services, we're helping businesses level up and take on the global scene. Our commitment: Faster. Better. More reliable. In most cases: Cheaper as well.

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