Nine-figure bonus for taking a company public?

Aug 13, 2021 53 Comments

Squarespace CEO received a large bonus (hundreds of millions) for taking our company public.

It’s hidden under “direct listing expenses” if you look closely at our earnings statement for the quarter. The actual listing expenses (paid to the investment banks, market makers, stock exchanges, etc) were only 10% of the total; the other 90% was paid to the CEO.

It was in the form of stock by the way, which (effectively) diluted everyone else, and #squarespace employees are currently pissed. Our stock price has tanked further, after it was released.

I would like to know if this is standard practice? Do CEOs get an extra bonus for taking a company public? Or are we seeing the next Adam Neumann / WeWork here?

#squarespace #ipo #tech

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TOP 53 Comments
  • To add insult to injury, Squarespace equity grants were nowhere near market competitive, even after pre-IPO appreciation, and equity refreshers are peanuts.

    I am a senior engineer, at the company a little over 4 years, contributed a lot to major projects and incident fixes over the years. My *best* refresher, after nearly 3x appreciation, amounted to less than $3k take home pay.

    My fall off from year 4 to 5 will result in 80% reduction of equity compensation, and Squarespace notoriously gives bad raises (~3% for low or average performance, ~5-6% for an outstanding year), so my base has moved up very little by comparison.

    WLB is poor due to constant incidents and understaffed on-call rotations. If it wasn’t for how hard leetcode interviews are, I would just leave, and I may still even for a pay cut to a start-up or something because this place is cray.

    So to feel like I contributed a lot for years to help make the direct listing possible, and the CEO is getting nine figures while my refresher is worth ~$2500, it is infuriating.
    Aug 13, 2021 9
    • I’ve heard a ton of instances of several engineers starting in the low-mid 100’s, getting 2% raises every year with no refreshers.

      And because we don’t pay well 1. People stay for 2 years and bounce and 2. We’re losing folks to the bigger/better companies that will pay well, which leads to not getting as experienced people.

      And we’re told we should be grateful some of us are getting a refresher at all, that I have to wait 4 years for. Our stock price will never beat Shopify’s. Hell, even Wix is 4x ours.

      But hey, at least the ceo can cash out big time to buy more houses out in Long Island he’ll get professionally decorated.
      Aug 16, 2021
    • Indeed
      int@rfacer

      Go to company page Indeed

      int@rfacer
      @gt3DFG3, I'm actually curious why any skilled, personable people would stay at Squarespace? Clearly, they do, or you wouldn't still be there.

      For me, SQSP was fun until realizing the job was neither going to help me financially, or move my career forward. I bailed at around 18 months, like most folks I know of.

      When I was there years ago, people were frequently leaving for 40%-80%+ comp raises to join companies that were better run, involved much less pointless day-to-day friction, and were actually focused on helping customers -- rather than being obsessed with the minutia of AC's weird personal aesthetic oddities.

      I'm not even an engineer, and I've also already gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars of stock & bonus plan refreshers in my first 2 years after leaving SQSP.

      I remember, when looking at apartments in NYC, a broker saying, "You can judge how much a landlord respects their tenants by the condition of the property."

      Similarly, you can judge how much a CEO actually respects their employees by how much they're willing to actually pay them.
      Aug 17, 2021
  • Isn’t SquareSpace the company that buys ads on YouTuber videos like Raid Shadow Legends? I expect nothing less
    Aug 13, 2021 7
    • It’s such a shame too because new, energetic people just get sick of it & leave. All they want is a reasonable degree of honesty and sincere, constructive progress on improvements. It’s not like people are making crazy demands or expecting a miraculous overnight solution to everything.

      But even the slightest attempts at honest feedback are just shutdown. You’re either giving ++ on Slack to say what a great job people did on the latest multi-day total shutdown of the deployment systems, or you’re The Enemy who will get ignored, disinvited from meetings and frozen out until you leave.
      Aug 14, 2021
    • Ah yes. Hubot and Slack karma ++s. It’s the perfect tool for those in the political ring to pat each other’s back publicly (for a mediocre job “well” done) and get visibility for promotions to fail upwards. 👍
      Aug 14, 2021
  • Does not seem like standard thing. Seems like a very big amount. Where is the board in all this?
    Aug 13, 2021 2
  • Oscar
    jlpg15

    Go to company page Oscar

    jlpg15
    Do you guys like Squarespace other than stuff like this, or are you all looking to leave?
    Aug 18, 2021 13
  • To clarify the analogy with Adam Neumann of WeWork, the Squarespace CEO also has majority voting control (i.e. 68% of votes) and has a good amount of unilateral power.
    Aug 13, 2021 0