Just got an offer from Chime. Base 210k, 15k units RSU@41 and 10% annual bonus. TC is around 380k. YOE 6. A few questions here: Is this a good offer and how much room for negotiation? How’s the upside of Chime as currently at late stage of IPO? For those who works at Chime, how’s annual refreshers and how’s the promotion policy? How do you like the company? And how do you see company’s future after really working there? #chime Chime #startup Current TC 300k.
All the late stage fintech unicorn seems to have crazy upside!
They are RSUs and not ISOs? When do colleagues usually make the change in behavior, I thought it was post IPO.
Recruiter said it’s RSU. What are the differences?
RSU - stock is given to you on a date and it's treated like a bonus. You need to pay taxes on its current value. Generally people sell a portion of the shares to cover taxes. If the shares can't be sold I don't know how the tax implications works. ISO - you get the right to buy the shares at a set price for 10 years or a window from when you quit. This avoids any tax implications as you have right to buy instead of receiving a bonus. Then if company goes public you can buy your option and sell to cover taxes. ISO were (trump simplified this?) complicated if you exercised (bought) options when not public because you get AMT profit on the difference between your price and actual value. Generally this only happens when you quit.
Which team? Solid offer though
Not sure the exact team.
Do you have competing offers, Apple?
Have one pending offer with no numbers yet.
How long did chime give you to decide?
I had bad experience with the company culture at chime. I rejected the offer. Happiness > TC for me
What bad experience? Could you share more please?
What was the bad experience!?
that’s outstanding! take it!
1 month in from FB and I really like it so far. $41 is at $15B valuation, which is low compared to companies like DoorDash that are not profitable with a $45B market cap. Lots of upside and you can have a positive impact to manifest it at this stage.
you know profitably is not what matters right?
Thanks for the information. I know Chime is a fast growing company, but I’m wondering if it can keep the speed of growing
The main issue with banks, is they have garbage valuation multiples in general. Unfortunately, Chime (as far as one can see today) is a bank. They trade privately as a tech company. Unsure how public markets will take it.
The business is not structured as a bank. We are very asset light, have very predictable revenue and growth and a lot of opportunities to acquire new members as well as offer new products to existing members. The rate at which we are (and can continue to) innovating in light years ahead of banks imo (eg. we don't need to spend billions of dollars on "technology" like big banks do, their systems are outdated and can't talk to each other, they have a hard time using data and iterating on products and features and so on).
You currently offer a checking account for subprime individuals that monetized via interchange aka spend. Given your member base, wealth management which has higher margins but already more saturated, isn’t as great market to enter. If you move into lending, which it seems you have, it’s ultimately a balance sheet based business for you to upkeep strong margins, as lending is a razor thin margin business and cost of capital is expensive. Regardless of whichever consumer financial services you expand into, your business will eventually converge to mimic what the banks offer today. Financial services are a commodity, all banks and credit unions fundamentally offer you the same product, with little differentiation on branding, pricing and so forth. Your argument on being lighter on OPEX is great, but your business model today and foreseeably is to become a bank. Even if you’re a high growth bank, it’s fundamentally a thin margin business and your revenue multiple will be < 4, in contrast to what it’s probably at today (15x+)
Looks solid. Make some want to interview there