[zenlikethat]

> Early employees often have an outsized impact on the trajectory of a company

Mmm... I think we'll have to agree to disagree there... Seems to me that the bulk of the work adding value in a company, even if it's "just maintenance", is in the marathon and not the sprint. The initial engineers who contributed to Google Search no doubt contributed value but it's the folks who kept it going strong (and changing for the better) for many years afterwards that are the real company heroes.

And if someone is really such a special snowflake, I don't see why they'd bother working for someone else instead of founding their own company. If they expect to get paid proportionally that is.

> get it to a point where additional hiring is possible

Usually investors do this by injecting cash, at least in your traditional high growth "startup".

> To take away that earned and vested compensation ... is ... grossly unfair

How is it unfair if the employee agrees to the terms walking in?

If Joe Vendor down the street sells something to you at a loss, do you feel bad about buying it anyway? Likely not, since he happily signed it over to you for a reduced price.

[acjohnson55]

If a company really believes that, they're free to back-load their grants and vesting. The reason they generally don't do this is because "dead equity" isn't a real problem. I'm nearly certain most employee options go unexercised. For one thing, most employees don't vest their full grant before they move on. And those that do often can't afford to buy it anyway.

The one exception might be the handful of employees that joined before the first big round, who might still be able to exercise at a negligible strike price. Again, I don't think it's a real problem in the grand scheme of things.