[tptacek]

I'm not sure what this critique has to do with the point of the article. This is, I think, a more careful (and lucrative) negotiation process than 99% of engineers are apt to us. The point of the post was to explain that process, presumably in the hopes of benefiting other startup employees.

Do you disagree with the methodology? How? Let's talk about that, and not what you think about the blog author's personal life.

[chasing]

I think she used a valuation of $5mil when doing her calculations. What are the odds the company will exit at that number? What are the odds it'll exit higher? What are the odds that it'll flame out and be worth nothing? Will her shares dilute? How much more does she feel she should earn to make up for all of this extra risk she's assuming?

She doesn't appear to consider any of this. At least, I don't see any numbers that take this stuff into account.

[tptacek]

She's using the note valuation; she didn't just make up $5MM.

Those are all good questions to ask. Some of them are questions she considers, some of them aren't.

Ultimately, though, the question of how you --- a prospective employee --- value equity is orthogonal to the question this post engages with, which is "how do I take the valuation for my role that I arrive at and effectively communicate it to the prospective employer so as to improve my initial offer". And, in that regard, I think this is a very good and useful post.

[rdl]

I think her methodology was sound, and knowing to use it at all was great. I just question the CEO/founder for low-balling to begin with, and I'm not sure if the whole thing raises the perceived awesomeness of keen.io as an employer (which is what you'd want on a corporate blog).

[tptacek]

On the meta point: I agree, it wasn't a great Keen.io boosting piece. Probably no blog post that has salary numbers next to equity allocations can be. But then, I found the honesty bracing in... mostly... a good way.

[rprasad]

His point is that the methodology is flawed because of the unique circumstances of the author being engaged to the CEO. This skews the inputs upward in her favor.

[tptacek]

Do you think the negotiating framework she wrote about here is unlikely to yield good results for normal startup people?

[smackfu]

I feel like people put more weight on advice with personal experience behind it. That weight is understandably lowered when the circumstances turn out to be unique and odd and not really generally applicable.

I mean, would you take advice about how to move up in a company the same from the son of the founder?

[dkador]

You think because they're engaged that she was more likely to get a favorable offer?

[smackfu]

Surely it messes with things that a favorable offer to her is also a favorable offer to her husband.

[te_chris]

It completely distorts the negotiating position because (assuming no divorce), she's going to benefit from the success either way.

[rdl]

I have seen the opposite the case sometimes, too -- people overcompensate and treat their friends/spouses worse than they'd treat an arms length employee.

I personally worked with a married couple as founders, and would never do this again (a lot had to do with them in specific, but the general failure mode of any relationship problems spilling over into business, on top of them always ganging up on others, seems general). I'd probably work at a company with siblings as founders, and maybe at a company where a couple were in different roles (founder + employee).

[rprasad]

Well, yes. Being engaged to the CEO usually has that effect, especially when the CEO himself is handling the negotiations. It would be different if someone else who she was not friends with (and who was not friends with the CEO) was handling the negotiation, but not much. In the end, being the CEO's future wife plays a substantial role in her situation.

[dkador]

I think that's a fair thing to assume. Full disclosure: I'm Dan, one of the other co-founders of Keen. I actually did the negotiation with Michelle - Kyle delivered our original offer. But she's one of my best friends as well. As is Kyle. As is our other co-founder and the two other people on our team.

The negotiation was awkward, but I'm personally convinced that we're a stronger team because of our close personal bonds. It's not for everybody or every team, of course, but I believe it works for us.

[tomkarlo]

Did the team contemplate in making this offer that if something went sour in that relationship, you'd end up with a CEO who has both personal drama and potentially a very difficult situation in the office, given that she'd be reporting to him? How did your corporate counsel feel about this? Your board?

If she's not reporting to the CEO, how does her new manager feel about having a team member who's his bosses' fiancee? Would he be comfortable firing her if she fails to perform?

I know this seems hypothetical, but I think anyone who's been around startup has seen some variant of this play out multiple times. It's bad enough when it's friends; it's even more treacherous when it's a fiancee/wife.

[tptacek]

I'm biased, as I work with my spouse, but this is I think an overblown concern. People leave companies for all sorts of reasons, many of them dumb. They do not need to have made a lifelong personal commitment to their manager to find those reasons. Also, people do not need to have made that commitment in order to access their unprofessional self; normal team members find ways to be deeply unprofessional without entangling their relationships into their companies.

Yes. Strictly speaking, if you get into business with your significant other, you are increasing the cardinality of the set of things that can go wrong with your team. For people that think like us, maybe that's where you stop thinking, and if so, fine. But the set we're talking about is very large, and I also know high school statistics, and so can observe that the relationship stuff is unlikely to be the event that blows up your team.

Believe in working with your spouse (or close friends, or whatever) or not. Either way: it has nothing to do with negotiating for a job, and it's a little creepy to bring it up here.

[dkador]

Of course we've thought of this (and a number of other hypotheticals). And of course we've discussed it, openly amongst the entire team as well as behind closed doors with our board and counsel. It does complicate things. In the end we felt like the positives (having Michelle on the team so we can take advantage of her strengths) outweigh the potential negatives. It could absolutely turn out badly. As with almost everything else in startups, we're making a hedged bet. And you're free to think we've made a mistake, of course, as long as you don't leave believing we haven't thought a ton about this. :)

It would be different if we were inserting Michelle into some rigid organization structure, especially if she was reporting to somebody other than our CEO. We don't have that kind of structure, though, and even if we did, we would never tell a frontline manager to hire somebody based on nepotism. That's a sure-fire way to kill a company in my book.

[wetzler]

Yes. Maybe a whole separate blog post coming on that :)