[enra]

I’m CEO of Linear who raised the alarm on this.

I have to commend them for making this decision and removing the conflict of interest.

However they didn’t address the fact that sales people had convenient access to data and how long & broadly that access was abused.

Edit: fixed “Linear CEO” to “CEO of Linear”

[choppaface]

I'm a former employee of a place that did Carta. Employees are already left in the dark about the cap table, liquidity preferences, venture debt, and the C-Suite's relationship with the Board. Based on this exchange, I'd now see usage of Carta as a red flag when looking at any new start-up. Maybe Schwab or Shareworks are ok (Shareworks has been fine in my own experience). The investors are already doing hyper-leveraged arbitrage with my labor, I don't need the HR Comp software to do that too (even if they say they don't, and even if they say that business is only worth $3m/yr vs $250m/yr for accounting). If they want to do that, they can pay me directly.

[therobots927]

I worked for a startup where I repeatedly asked basic questions to estimate the value of my shares. I never got a straight answer. So I applied to a FAANG and got in. When I was onboarding the FAANG asked what my shares I was leaving behind were worth (they take this number and use it to calculate starting bonus). I had no idea, gave an honest estimate, and later found out that I had given them a number about 60% lower than the true value. I'll never forgive the startup execs for keeping me in the dark, or ever work for a company again that doesn't make that information freely available. One of my favorite memories was walking out the door of that place.

[jey]

> asked what my shares I was leaving behind were worth

I always decline to answer these questions by saying "it's not relevant; I'd like to be compensated according to my background/experience and the role". If there's a specific number I'm looking for, I'll also ask for that. But I'd never directly answer the "what was your last salary/comp?" question.

[fatnoah]

I flat out never trust any numbers from startups. Some companies are still using the SaaS 10-13x revenue as an estimation, despite the current economic climate and often in spite of a) not reqlly being a SaaS and b) not growing that fast.

Throw in liquidation preferences, etc. and it's not really possible to know anyway. I've been at three startups. Two were acquired and one is still plateaued over 10 years after I left. Total value of my stock so far? $0.

It'd have to be some rare unicorn for me to treat startup options as anything other than a lottery ticket.

[choppaface]

I’ve had two offers where only the number of shares was quoted, one of them from a YC alum. One now has a record of making false statements about their valuation and has gone under, the other got sold for pennies. If they only give you number of shares it’s a big red flag and could be outright fraud.

[athoscouto]

I've worked on some companies that used Carta. In some of them, I had access to cap table, preferences, total raised debt, etc. In others, I could see only my number of options and their strike price. Is up to the company how much they want to share, Carta can be used on both ways.

[choppaface]

I agree it’s up to the company how much they share. And companies that sure very little are not worth smart talent.

[CityOfThrowaway]

They did address it... by completely eliminating the department.

They didn't deep dive retro it, but in that, we know the answer.

[milkglass]

So strange. What are the data retention requirements for situations such as this?

The whole thing just feels so off. Some big moves but very little details from Carta.

Commitments just sound like empty promises now, especially when they're presented on Medium. Did any customers receive assurance or details of what went down?

[colechristensen]

Some financial institutions are basically required to retain everything for years, Carta may or may not be outside some of those stricter requirements.

Given their customers are startups, but more specifically founders themselves, and they handle cap tables, I’m sure they’re getting plenty of direct questions from legal departments with the interest of C suites everywhere. Assurances might well be coming in to form of legal agreements and external audits, and possibly SEC investigations and discovery for lawsuits.

[baobun]

No, there is no acknowledgement that anything undue ever happened. Only that business in this department hasn't been financially successful and that customers could have concerns.

Nothing about those concerns actually being valid. This is vague misdirection at best.

[krallja]

It’s in the previous post: https://henrysward.medium.com/how-we-handle-captable-informa...

> On Friday we had an internal policy violation that affected three companies. I’ve been in touch with the founders and I’m appalled we made that mistake and it should never have happened. It is unacceptable and we’ve dealt with the violation on Saturday morning and are continuing the investigation to make sure it never happens again.

[stuaxo]

Stop doing the possibly illegal thing, and hope that nobody takes it further I guess.

[jjtang1]

Are you leaving Carta for Pulley or other platforms? We've been long time Carta customers at Rootly.

[enra]

We’re starting to evaluate other platforms, Pulley and Angellist.

[jjtheblunt]

what is "linear"? [ edit : thanks below! ]

[temp_praneshp]

https://linear.app/

He's the CEO "of" Linear, not a linear CEO :)

[dboreham]

Now planning to re-brand myself as a logarithmic CEO of course.

[jgilias]

I’d rather be an exponential one then!

[esafak]

Exponent, Inc. is already taken...

[bozhark]

Exponent, Shell.

[Terr_]

Or to CS folks, a CEO(n)

[danmur]

He could be both, who are we to judge

[jjtang1]

Linear is the only thing saving startups like ours from using Jira ;)

[jjtheblunt]

:)

[dangrossman]

The company he's CEO of: https://linear.app

[dataflow]

Oh wow thanks, I just assumed it's Linear Technologies.

[elvinyung]

How was the beef stew?