Startup Employee Equity

Some companies fire people right before the shares vest. Then they really are worth $0.

Even if you fire your early employees, don't they still retain the equity earned up to that point?

Did the company originally agree to keep those employees around through the vesting period? If any of them were critical to the company's success then nobody would be asking them to give up anything.

Great example: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-29/birchbox-c...At a lower valuation, employees could have had a nice exit. Now they are stuck.

Sounds like a "take the money and run" kind of deal. Why doesn't he give the company to the employees?

First of all, the story doesn't mention anything about the size of the deal.Second of all, the company is selling after ~2 years. The average employee has probably been there for less than 1 year. Excluding the common stock of the founders (since they are the ones who made the decision to sell), employee common stock grants and common stock options are all about ensuring employees get a share of blockbuster company results, like IPOs or 8/9 figure acquisitions.In the case of sm

Thank you for the informative response.1) Ok, Google/FB common shares were worth something. Those are extreme outliers in exits, and had ethical founders. But founders have another option if they drive the common share value to nothing - retention bonuses. They can say, ok we will make all the common shares worthless, but you can just give me a huge package as part of the aquisition. So employees can't rely on founders looking after common shares out of self-interest. If you read th

https://www.cnet.com/news/zynga-to-employees-give-back-our-s...If I stayed at a place a few extra years in anticipation of an IPO, this would have me seeing red.

Wonder what happens to the employee's equity.

Better than the age of "never IPO that way our employees can't cash out their shares and leave".