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Comment by schkkd | Hacker News Reader

That's why when a yet another aspiring startup wants to hire me, I ask for a high sign on bonus as an insurance, monthly vesting cycle, at least 200k in base pay and high severance upon termination. Never been given that, but I don't regret: looking back, all those "just 1 year till IPO" companies are underwater.

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Monthly vesting without a year one cliff is not really done, AFAIK. I also don't think that there is a lot of wiggle room for negotiated severance terms. But sign on bonuses and 200k base pay could certainly be on the table.

It happens at both F & G in FAANG.

Monthly vesting in the first year?

Can confirm that at G.

Monthly at Google, quarterly at Facebook.

The vest frequency depends on the size of the grant.

Some grants (small) once a year Bigger - quarterly Large - monthly

The only point of the one year cliff is to pay someone less, or keep a startup’s cap table clean. For a public company there would be no point.

The other point is to bind people to the company.

It's very similar to a sign-on bonus you can claw back in the first year or two.

Yep. That's what I had at Google. Was selling shares as soon as I acquired them (no issue with GOOG but I preferred more diversification). I recall there being some admin time needed (~2-3 months?) before I had access to said shares but as soon as I did all 2-3 months worth were "vested" and I started cashing out.

Looks like finally a comment thread where there are no pitch forks against G. Still waiting for someone to concoct a reason as to why this maybe bad for employees :D Also it's quarterly at FB.

I had a first year cliff at Google a few years ago. But they might have changed that.

Facebook definitely doesn't have a cliff in 2020.

Changed in latter half of 2017.

Interesting. Do you know why?

More employee friendly

But why didn't they do it before then?

It was just acceptable before to have a 1 year cliff? Also it was done to placate Nooglers not getting a refresher for the first year (although that didn't make any sense and some Nooglers in 2017 got neither end of the stick).

Thanks!

Snap does monthly no cliff as well.

Most startups are an unintentional scam by unwitting founders.

very astutely stated. I think many of us make fundamental attribution mistake - what can be attributed to ignorance/stupidity should not be attributed to malice.

I think I'm missing something here.. but how can one negotiate severance pay for termination.

I was under the assumption that companies offered severance pay as a means to save face.. and this is not part of the offer negotiation.

anything is for sale and on the table, you just have to ask/demand it. Doesn't mean you're going to get it though.

Everything is negotiable. You can negotiate a private office with a ocean view if you're valuable enough. This won't work for rank and file employees obviously.

> I was under the assumption that companies offered severance pay as a means to save face.. and this is not part of the offer negotiation.

Quite the opposite- this is how exec compensation works. It seems less common in startup land but I've dealt with it before

For some high-level positions, it gets negotiated up-front. You're leaving some other company, taking a risk, and there's a good chance you might not be right for the new company.

But if you're less high-level but rare and desirable, well, some situations, like moving cross-country, might make it a bit appropriate.

Are you an engineer or a professional athlete?

I think Netflix has actually likened its engineers to a "pro sports team."

Same, those clowns are Sky Rocket Ventures wouldn't stop calling me. I told them to match 65% of my then-salary, they realized they weren't talking with a broke 20 year old kid and stopped calling me.

If you've never been given that then this is content free.

Mostly, but not completely content free.

Lots of people are afraid when negotiating, and the original comment shows that even making big demands up front is not catastrophic. You can still cave in later.

The "high severance upon termination" is smart, I never thought about asking for that. I'll definitely try that in the future!

There's a reason nobody has ever extended him this offer, and I suspect this is it.

This is called a a golden handshake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_handshake

Unless you are receiving executive level compensation and/or you have a serious public reputation on the line, no reasonable company would consider giving you that. It would give you the perverse incentive to try to get fired and someone negotiating for that would be a strong negative signal - an economic moral hazard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

Anybody accepted those terms?

He literally wrote "Never been given that"

there are other people here who might have made similar attempts

Nope, no one. And I could negotiate terms with directors, VPs and CEOs (of small firms) over lunches: meaning that they deemed it valuable enough to spend a few hours of their time on me, make a sales pitch and listen. Some admitted that while my terms were reasonable, it would just too expensive for their company to hire me.

What’s your batting average?

"Never been given that".

Zero, apparently.

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