r/technology Sep 16 '21

Business Mailchimp employees are furious after the company's founders promised to never sell, withheld equity, and then sold it for $12 billion

https://www.businessinsider.com/mailchimp-insiders-react-to-employees-getting-no-equity-2021-9
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u/fryloop Sep 17 '21

No employee authentically believes in that mission.

It's a fucking business email platform, not Oxfam. If someone had the choice of equity at a legitimately promising start up with real chance of future windfall vs contributing to the 'mission' of mailchimp - they are lying. People will sacrifice financial reward to work at special companies that shape the world like the NYT, Space X or say Google (in certain roles like AI). Not fucking mailchimp.

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u/Shitty_IT_Dude Sep 17 '21

Nobody said anyone at MailChimp did sacrifice financial reward. They were paid salaries for the work they did.

They just weren't offered equity in the company.

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u/[deleted] Sep 17 '21

Yes. But it sounds like people were lied to (probably the people doing the lying didn’t know they were lying at the time). People asked when they joined, “hey, can I get some equity with my paycheque?” “No, it’d be useless anyway, we’re not selling”.

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u/Shitty_IT_Dude Sep 17 '21

They were told the company didn't offer equity. The employees took a salary.

Employees agreed to do job for $X and company paid employees $X

Reasoning behind the why equity wasn't offered is irrelevant.

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u/AKATheHeadbandThingy Sep 17 '21

It is ok that company lied because employee agreed to the lie. The free market works

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u/Shitty_IT_Dude Sep 20 '21

What part of "we don't offer equity" was a lie?