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Comment by miragecraft | Hacker News Reader

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miragecraft·

Thanks for the insight.

So I guess the conclusion is that Unity was fucked pre-IPO?

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The fact that the CEO was slowly selling millions of shares was an indication

I would expect any CEO to continuously sell shares as they are awarded. Diversifying investments is a very recommended and common investment choice.

The CEO's role though is to help make the stock attractive to other investors, not just optimize for their own personal finances. I personally would expect most CEOs to hold a significant portion of their stock awards as a show of confidence in the future value of the company - if the CEO won't hold the investment, why should anyone else?

Surely the CEO has both interests, and securing resources for themselves is of higher priority than securing them for others. They might be expected to hold proportionally more of it than others, but I also would not expect any half intelligent person to put all their eggs in one basket just for the benefit of others.

> if the CEO won't hold the investment, why should anyone else?

I don't think you understand how many shares a CEO has. There are directors at Unity throwing around hundreds of thousands of shares and I'm sure the C execs have an order of magnitude more than that. You never want all your eggs in one basket, if only because you don't want everything to be beholden to the power of your country's economy (something even a CEO can't control).

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