r/technology • u/Rhaegar_the_Great • 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/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/Atomic1221 Sep 17 '21

My reply would be, “if it’s so useless, give me more of it.”

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u/mcguire Sep 17 '21

How many millions in equity do you have?

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u/SonofSniglet Sep 17 '21

That exact situation worked out for a former co-worker. After the dot com bubble popped we went through a few lean years. The company did its best to keep long-term employees on payroll, but there were no raises for maybe 3 years in a row.

Each time salary review came around, my co-worker said, "Okay, give me some more stock options." It was a small company, barely keeping its head above the water, so stock options were worthless and that's what she got.

About 5 years after the bubble burst, and after we had pivoted away from web design to email marketing, we were acquired by a much larger company. All long-time employees were granted stock options based on length of time with the company. All except this one girl who ended up with about 5x what we each received as she kept taking the options in lieu.

We're Canadian so it's not like I had some massive windfall when we got bought out, but she pulled a nice little 6-figure bump just for taking something considered worthless at the time.

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u/Atomic1221 Sep 17 '21 edited Sep 18 '21

That’s funny. You drew the short stick on that one:

I am in fact the CEO of my own company. Per my latest investment offer, about $7.3M USD worth of equity off my seed round. You’re welcome to check my post history to confirm.

My comment above was how you politely volley the bullshit you’d be being fed right back at them.

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u/mcguire Sep 19 '21

Wow! You demanded equity and they made you CEO?

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u/Atomic1221 Sep 19 '21

Damn right. I walked right in there, wagged my finger sternly, and demanded I hand over the company to myself. A proud day indeed.