Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Sohcahtoa82 1685 days ago
I joined a startup a few months ago, and yeah...I don't know what my stock options are potentially worth.

I can buy 20,000 shares at $3/share over 4 years. We got a second round of VC funding in Spring with a valuation of $250M. Let's say in 5 years, we go public, I had exercised all my options, and we end up being worth $25B. Would that mean the $60,000 I spent on shares would be worth $6M?

Would another round of VC funding affect this?

Or is there more information needed that I don't know and might not have access to?

2 comments

There is simply no way to tell. It all depends on how many shares there are at the time you sell. VC funding can change this. Do you know how many shares there are today?

If there is a 25B valuation and 25B shares at the time of sale, your shares would be worth 20K (and you overpaid).

If there is a 25B valuation and 25 million shares, you would be worth 20M

According to the stock options plan document, there are 2.5M shares reserved for issuance for the plan. Of course, that says nothing about total shares.
This might be helpful:

https://carta.com/blog/equity-101-stock-economics/

If your options were priced at the $250 million valuation, and no dilution occurs, the stock value would be 3$*IPO valuation/$250M.

Dilution events are pretty common, even for companies that are revenue positive.

I would recommend viewing the options as a potential windfall, but not part of any compensation evaluation or financial planning.

Usually new funding leads to dilution of existing investors, you might want to read the offering of your second round for relevant details.