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Comment by harryh | Hacker News Reader

FWIW, I kind of don't believe that this question is real. Questioner clams that he is a VP but also:

> He has no idea how liquidation preferences work

> He was "told" that the company was being acquired (instead of being involved in the sale)

> No one at the company walked him through how his stock was valued, even after the acquisition. To the point that he thinks he needs to hire a lawyer.

It's a fine question to use as a lead in to explaining how stock options work, and that's a fine thing to write about. But I'd bet money that the author made up the question.

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The title is not a meaningful gauge of a person's knowledge or experience. It wouldn't be unheard of for a VP at a company with 50 employees to have similar responsibilities as a manager at a company with 1000 employees. They could also be VP of Engineering/Customer Service/etc. which would typically not be expected to have much, if any, legal or finance knowledge.

> They could also be VP of Engineering/Customer Service/etc. which would typically not be expected to have much, if any, legal or finance knowledge.

That's in the article:

> Four years ago, I landed a VP of engineering job at a red hot startup, for which I was granted options for 2% of the company.

That person could have easily been a Senior Software Engineer at FAANG before becoming a VP of engineering at a startup.

How much do Level 5 engineers at Google know about liquidation preferences if they have never worked at a startup before?

Ya, I'm not saying I'm 100% confident in my assessment. Just saying that reading it feels pretty fishy.

Just my opinion.

It could be. But small companies often give their employees inflated titles, where a "VP" is actually a small team lead with no executive responsibilities.

Titles are usually based on area of responsibility, at a small company you may have a small number people or no people but still have the responsibility... it's just enough for one person to handle. So it's not bad to have a VP of Engineering only manage 4 ppl.... but if everyone things a VP of Engineering is the same at small or large companies that's uninformed of reality. Title inflation helps recruit... so add that on to this as well and it's confusing. Not saying it's right, but that's how it is.

Actually, there is immense title inflation at large companies as well, just depends which company and field. Have you seen the number of VPs in the Finance industry in NYC?

Exactly. The entirety of the company roster could easily be 5 people and still have someone with a title like that.

Most people I know who work in startups don’t know this stuff. Most people I know that run startups do know this. The knowledge gap is huge.

"VP of engineering", not Business, you need to look closer before writing something like your theories...

yes it’s obviously a setup. just like “FAQ”s are not normally FA’d before being answered.

doesn’t take away from the article.

My thought as well.

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