Argo AI Valuation for Offers
I am planning to join Argo AI. Is there a talk within the company to reevaluate those 20B offers? Stock market and growth stock valuations are miserable now. I mean I rally like to prospects of Argo AI, but it is probably valued at 7-8B now realistically.
There are no such talks trickling to employees and some are anxious as a result
There are no reups or anything like that either except for some and at promotions. The distribution of equity within the company seems very "inequitable"
Do you actually work at Argo or are you just very new? We have refreshers. Annually following your 2.5 year mark.
Yes, there is a small grant at 2.5 years. It is not annual after that as I understand. There is a separate thread on the 2.5 year grant. It's small.
Aurora is 4b with same Number of folks Tsp is same too
Tsp ?
Tu Simple
TC?
Hard to evaluate the valuation of all these companies that don’t make any money. It’s a brand new industry and we certainly have lots going for us that Tusimple and Aurora absolutely do not. I would say that we have some super promising projects that could result in your equity multiplying many times over.
So much written above, but I don’t see a substance unfortunately.. I do agree it’s hard to evaluate
If Argo equity multiplies, so will any equity at competitors. Every AV company is following the broader industry trend. You would be better off at a company giving equivalent liquid equity today and refreshers by the time we ipo.
🤷🏻♂️
Breathe people. Argo is really well positioned vs other industry comparables. $20B is absolutely achievable. I have way more belief we can hit that today than when I joined. Stock market will come back up and we will ride that wave. Better to join a company that is kicking ass like us and grow with the market than join something that had its market growth and is now getting the stuffing kicked out of it as the free money fountain turns off (Eg Aurora, TuSimple). Unfortunately we do have a few people who seem to be actively trying to make us fail on Blind. I really don’t get it, but there it is.
Do you have any constructive things to say or we just take the kick ass thing and believe we’re 20b full of cash? (Anyhow I like working still at Argo and believe in substantiation etc)
Here’s something constructive - VW dumped Aurora and came to us. We are the only large AV company that isn’t owned by a larger corporate entity with conflicting goals. There is great internal material on competitive landscape I encourage you to take a look at - we are well positioned in the industry. Obviously, I’m not going to share company material on blind, but just go to the internal link. Having people who work at our company going out of their way to discourage others from working here is unbelievably harmful. If this was a crappy place to work or the valuation was super inflated it would be one thing. But it’s like 99% people who are anxious about us being pre ipo projecting their fears. I want candidates to know the truth about working here. The truth is not that we are failing or in trouble or the valuation is too high or whatever. The truth is that some people are nervous about not having certainty.
I think there is 2 side to look. It is hard to evaluate Argo valuation until next round funding. And Argo is far from 20B valuation. Argo has 5 years and long way to run so does the competitors, good thing is Argo doin things right and would success in long run. You can easily get more equity else where or very much upside growth like 5X or 10X. If you are join because of that, you will be very disappointed. The other side is there is a lot of things people can do in Argo, and engineering culture is pretty good among start ups. Great learning and fun projects. If you decide to work for Argo I would suggest forget about all the equity liquidation and focus on the work itself.
They didn't change my stock when I brought this up recently. Probably worth closer to 5 billion now.
How much they offered you? What level
You likely right with less than 10B number.