This sucks. I was at Google many years back and I remember her to be an awesome product leader. In fact even though I was another org, she was helpful and really helped me and our team.
excuse me for this offtopic (?) tangent, but can you please expand on what does being a good/amazing product leader mean? every kind of context helps, as I have no experience working inside these huge super-successful corps. thanks!
Makes insightful directives on what to put in as the core value of a product. When you are making stuff that the world really hasn’t seen before, it’s really hard to know what people want, as they often can’t tell you directly.
I’m not familiar with Susan’s work directly, but for example, it’s widely accepted that YT has the best revenue share and payout for its creators compared to competitors like twitch or TikTok.
Someone has to really sit down and figure out how getting paid for making internet videos works. It didn’t exist before.
Also great product leaders give team members principles and tools to work with (like metrics), so they don’t need to micromanage every decision, and the product can still be cohesive.
Just saw this news here. He taught me at Cornell when I was a CS undergrad and I remember that class fondly. I still remember one of his office hours which was a day or two before thanksgiving. No one showed up except me and I remember thinking to myself - I am here by myself with a Turing award winner. Unreal!! He was a fantastic professor and person. RIP, professor Hartmanis
Delhi is DC - capital of the country, lots of politicians and bureaucrats. Also spread out quite a bit and with lots of impressive historical and government buildings.
Mumbai is LA and NYC sort of combined - entertainment capital (Bollywood) and financial capital (main stock exchange, banks, Dalal street (equivalent of Wall Street). Also like NYC, cramped with lots of skyscrapers.
This is a tough one, but I would look for signals that you would look for even with non-Indians. e.g. is someone being excluded from team building activities, OR after work get togethers, OR are someone's ideas being dismissed without any particular reason.
Now, with specifics to Indians,
- if you hear someone mention they are Brahmin for no real reason, or in relationship to being really good at something, make a mental note that they may be at high risk of discriminating others
- if you hear folks pejoratively putting down someone because of where they are from or how they grew up - a small village
Kudos to your parents. I was fortunate that even while growing up in India, my parents never told me my caste and never filled it out in any school forms. If they teachers pushed for it, my parents would tell me to write Hindu, which of course is a religion. This worked because I grew up in big cities, were it wasn't discussed much.
Yes and the point is that today it looked the same as yesterday in the morning but it didn't turn out to be a bounce. It wasn't "obvious" that everything would rise on Monday. Only in retrospect.
You have to pay AMT on the difference between your strike price and the current 409a price of common. It doesn't have much to do with where preferred is valued, other than the fact that a high preferred value, means that the updated 409a common might be higher.
So let us say, your strike price is $0.50 and you are fully vested after 4 years. The company recently does a round where preferred is at $3.00 per share and the new 409a is $1.25/share. When you leave this is what will happen
- You need to pay the company $0.50 * number of options you have
- You have to pay AMT on (1.25-0.5) * number of shares
With last year's tax law, one good thing is that AMT rules changed, so AMT might not apply. You should, of course, talk to your accountant/tax professional for the proper advice :-)
That’s exactly what I was trying to say — specifically the 409a valuations for several companies I’ve been at were not appropriately reduced for common shares versus the preferred.
E.g. a company raising $5m Series D at a $30 million valuation, and which already has $10m in preferences. First you have to adjust the valuation because that $5m will be the first dollar out and might even be participating preferred - so they are getting 1/6th of the company for $5m but they are also getting basically a $5m note payable.
If you asked them what they would pay without the preference maybe it’s closer to $15m. Then you also have to adjust for the other outstanding preferences. So the common shares (which are likely to be even further diluted before they become marketable) in that case are presently nearly worthless.
Most people do not adequately consider the impact of preferred share preferences, future dilution, taxes, and marketability. These horseman turn a decision which might seem like at first glance to be, “Why give up the chance to participate in a future equity event?” into something more closely resembling a suckers bet.
> That’s exactly what I was trying to say — specifically the 409a valuations for several companies I’ve been at were not appropriately reduced for common shares versus the preferred.
Anecdata, but I have seen this too.
Can someone knowledgable founder here please chime in on why companies do this? Does the higher common price help the company boost its compensation packages to match those from AmaGoogFaceSoft who give publicly traded stock?
Aside from companies just not generally understanding the value of a low common stock valuation? They could mistakenly believe the low common valuation will impact a future funding round.
The value can creep up over time, and then companies try to avoid the perception that the common stock would ever become less valuable, so they also might try to keep it rising.
Or perhaps more dubiously, they could be quoting stock option grants in terms of dollar value of the strike price, and want it to look higher for the same number of shares. In an offer letter, which seems like a larger/better grant; 10,000 options at a $3.80 exercise price, or 10,000 options at a $0.38 exercise price? You will almost never see a percentage value quoted, and I've heard of some companies claiming the total share count is not even public information!
