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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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.
self.bonus = milkit*fuckEveryoneElse.con
Wasn’t he also the founder though? I get where you are coming from but he grew the company from nothing
True, that’s why I’m asking if other companies going public also have this practice. If it’s normal / typical in our industry, then employees shouldn’t be complaining.
Also, he’s not suffering in terms of what he already had before going public. He managed to keep ~ a third of the company stock float for himself up till today, which is rare for a founder to successfully do. Plenty of founders only have single digit %s by the time they go public. So it seems like Squarespace employees think he has already been well compensated for his risk and sweat.
Sounds like the ceo f'ed you all over
Well played… he offering coaching lessons on negotiation?
Sign me up too
Wow and I thought we had it bad lmao. A 9 figure bonus for something that someone would only use if they somehow didn’t know about Wordpress, yikes
what a legend
Did that reduce your expected annual TC, and if so by how much?
For me personally, I have lost 16% in TC since we went public (e.g. over the past 3 months or so). Others have lost more because they joined earlier and have a larger proportion of their comp in stock. Of course, it’s hard to determine how much of it is due to the CEO bonus versus other factors.
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Does not seem like standard thing. Seems like a very big amount. Where is the board in all this?
Sorry, I forgot to mention in my original post that the CEO has more than 50% of voting power.
Oh no