Former Zoox employees sue, alleging rival offer was better than Amazon's

On the chunk of equity, I had a cofounder walk away early so I'm a little burned on the subject. You're right that the letting go before vesting is an issue, I think maybe rethinking the cliff to something like a 6 month rather than a year could do better there. Full disclosure, we do have a mildly backloaded vesting schedule (20-23-27-30) to encourage staying longer, but I think a crazy backload (like 10-15-25-50) creates toxic incentives on firing people before the equity hits.

I think essentially my (and the investor's) worries about that employee stem from a belief that a founder typically has a different level of emotional commitment than even very dedicated early employees. Obviously not always but often. Which means that even if it's a theoretical risk that the founder walks early with a hefty chunk, it's less likely.

On owning less than half, I actually tried to write a clause like that (I vote by proxy for employees who own less than a given percentage individually) into the term sheet. It was rejected by the investors. I'd love to have a board representative for the employees as we expand. I've actually considered a seat that has to be a non-exec employee that would rotate in every 6-12 months. Something to consider when we have more seats for sure.

With all hires I've been clear on how much we've raised, how many shares exist, who are the investors in rough proportion, rough estimate of runway, and milestones we have to hit to get the next round. I'll think about careful ways to share the information as we go down the road. One difficulty is that it's hard to judge how people react to these numbers. If I've got 6 months runway left, how many people look for the exits? And what does it say about me that I'm not sure about being honest about that? I'm honestly really torn.

On unlimited PTO and time I sense that there's a larger, "will you abuse my home life and time?" undercurrent. On the accounting, I don't know the details but I'm told it's more than just the price of the PTO, it's the way it complicates backend accounting. Maybe I should dig more.

One way I think I could mitigate the concerns and that I've considered are as follows:

- guaranteed 1 company holiday per month, if there's no official holiday in that month we'll designate one monday or friday as off.

- 1 week off in the winter 1 week off in the summer as scheduled company shutdowns. The nature of our business is not live, "keep the website running" so we have flexibility there.

I've also set a tone with all my employees that we don't burn out here, lets find schedules that work. We shouldn't be burning the midnight oil and weekends all the time. If we are, we need to rethink our objectives or staffing. Maybe setting the above two benchmarks would also set that tone. Maybe this is idealism, but I think we can do it. I guess we'll find out!

Your 3 day work week sounds interesting, will think on it a bit. We would need to have a good mutual understanding of what milestones we want to hit on what timeline, but could be doable with the right people.

I hear you on the many ways things go wrong. I can't predict that, and sadly layoffs can happen. I think you can do those humanely but it's awful and I hope we'll avoid it, though likely if we're around long enough we won't.

On the investor/founder vs employee split though, I have common stock, just like every other employee. We rise and fall together, though yes investors can have a liquidation preference. In those cases, my strike price was better but that's the only way I'd be treated differently than an employee. I see no reason to change that, and I think if secondaries happen (and my investors typically don't do those) they should be open to all in proportion to their ownership of the company.

The stock comp at FAANG is basically unbeatable and I'm convinced is designed to distort the startup ecosystem. The only thing I'd say as risk is this:

"We're going to pay you a decent base, you're not gonna struggle. If we go big, you'll have a nice upside, and you'll have done it building something cool from the core. If we go medium, you'll probably not make as much overall as a FAANG, but you'll get to build something cool that mattered and was more directly tied to you personally. If we fail after a few years, then worst case you've worked on something cool, and FAANG will take you right back."

It's strongly tied to us building something cool to work on AND that while building it we don't abuse you. It sounds like I have to find ways to convincingly make that promise.

Some people experience less optimal outcomes in a union. Those people are free to resist unionization. What I don't like is the claim that, because some specific high performers can no longer negotiate as well, everybody else should shut up about unionization.

But the screenwriters guild is another example if you don't want to look for one where top performers are paid eight figure salaries.

> As soon as the union-negotiated common salary time runs out, top players’ pay jumps several times.

That 'several times' level only exists because of the unions.

No wonder if US unions always end up so bad if apparently nobody is willing to fix things and let pancilpushers do it.

Do you know if you earn more than your colleagues? If so, is this because of your negotiating skills?

You have fallen into the Us v Them trap that benefits employers. Your employer does not see you as significantly different to any other employee, even if you think you are. You have more in common with the other employees than you do with mid and senior level management.

Consider it this way, if you died on the way into work tomorrow, your colleagues would mourn and miss you, your employer would be typing up the job post whilst wondering if they could get someone cheaper this time.

I genuinely think you have some serious misunderstandings about what a union can and does do for its members. I don't know of one union that would prevent you from negotiating your own contract or terms and conditions. What you will find is that the bare minimum of acceptable terms has already been agreed with the union so you are starting negotiations 1-step up from where you would be without them. What this means for you is that you aren't using some of your powers of persuasion to ensure you have e.g. 14 days leave per year, you can now use that leeway to negotiate dental or medical, or whatever else you value.

I would just point out that employee unions are pretty strong in Europe, not over powered, but we have maternity pay, sick leave and generous annual leave allowances. In the US you dont like unions, have woefully inadequate annual leave, sick pay, maternity pay etc.

"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”

In the same way it seems like US employees don't see themselves as employees but as business owners/managers who haven't quite achieved their position as yet and a union would be detrimental to them when they are in that role even if it would benefit them right now.