Veterator wrote on Feb 23, 2012, 04:08:

Beamer wrote on Feb 22, 2012, 22:34:


What it often is is bonuses in the form of stock options, so that there's very serious investment from all the top employees.
You have that now, but not to the same extent. Often, though, those options didn't vest for years and unvested options were forfeit if you left the company, so there was far less company hopping since you'd be leaving a very sizeable amount of cash behind.

I have yet to speak to someone of the "common employee" variety who have gotten stock options and ended up not feeling ripped off. It usually pays off really well for early adopters and guys who come in at top tiers, but if you join even as little as a year after the company formed...you're SOL most the time unless you're top tier.

You either end up with stock that's worthless due to dilution or the company is bought out and your stock is worth pennies on the dollar in the deal. Or some other "screw the non-execs" deal.

It sounds like a really good idea, but I have yet to speak to someone who actually ended up with an amount of money that made them glad they stuck around through all the BS instead of jumping to another company for a higher pay position plus whatever else was in the deal.


Seems like more and more, stock doesn't mean much unless you control enough to influence decisions. As an employee or investor, you're just along for the ride and hope the people who are making the decisions are set on making you lose any gains you were expecting.