Evening blind. I work at a startup, joined very early, and I’m burned out as hell, I’m truly not motivated to do any work here any more, don’t like the work, don’t like the people, don’t like the management. I have an E5 offer at FB for 180 base/15% bonus/600k RSU in 5y/75k signon, and a Netflix offer for 400k cash. The startup is currently paying me 230k cash and my equity is worth on paper 3M (I’ve done the accurate math, considering the option price, current dilution and everything), of which I vested 1M, so I’d keep that with me in case I leave. Is it worth leaving that money (still not liquid, but relatively safe, I’ve had multiple investors offering to buy some of my shares at basically that price in secondary transactions) to pursue something better from a work quality point of view? The startup is also still growing, roughly doubling every 9-12 months, so in the best case the equity could grow still 2-3X in a couple years. 8 year of experience.
How long to vest the other $2mil? Is there a big year in next year or two? If you leave how long can you keep options without exercising? I’d probably stay and just slow down your work schedule to not burn out and take a good vacation. You should have enough institutional knowledge to be efficient with your hours. If you choose to leave, sell some to investors before leaving if you need the cash. It’s easier IMO while still employed there
Thanks. The remaining money vests over the next 3 years. Leaving means exercising the unvested options in 90 days. I have the liquidity to do so and, as you say, I’d just sell some to investors to not be too much out of pocket. I’ve been resting and vesting for a while now, and that’s part of what is burning me as well. Started reading programming books on my free time to keep learning lol.
So $650k year in paper money putting TC at $900k for next three years. I think you have to look st likelihood of success of the startup and what your life goals are. You could conceivably work those three years and then early retire, part time or not chase the TC grind or give yourself options for another startup or career path. Find time to take a 7-10 day vacation at a beach with no work and then see how burnt out you feel after that. Best of luck
Mind sharing Start Up name?
No sorry, too paranoid. It’s a solid startup selling a solid enterprise product (no consumer), currently in the few hundreds mil valuation, in the South Bay. Being so early with this big package, if I shared the name and someone were to read they’d recognize me immediately
Dude, I swear I know someone exactly like you. If you are my coworker or not. Just go to FB or Netflix, I’m starting interviewing myself.
Haha I guess we’ll know if we see each other again there
I am looking for a seed funded one too.
Can you take a long leave? What caused the burnout?
People. I really really like my craft, I’m not a genius or particularly smart but I love to care about programming and coming up with elegant architectures. As we’re doubling, we’ve done many sub quality hires that are bringing an environment more similar to big 9-5 corporates where everybody is scared of doing anything and the only thing that counts is just pleasing the boss.
Seems like going to FB for NTFX would bring you closer to the big Corp environment you’re trying to get away from. Why wouldn’t you look elsewhere?