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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

I don't believe this. Having been CEO of several startups, I know the wording of the equity plan and grant documents are really important. There are plenty of things not worth your time paying attention to, but these documents are too important for that.

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This wasn't in any of those, though.

This was in something you were asked to sign when exiting the company, and I can very much imagine that it was something HR or legal thought was a good idea to add in a kind of "better safe than sorry" way, and that the CEO wasn't aware of.

I'm not saying it's necessarily true -- but I do think it falls in the realm of believability.

Anything that involves repurchase should be reviewed by the CEO and lawyers, since ownership is a board level matter.

It wouldn't actually involve any repurchase from what I understand, because these aren't even actual shares (RSU's) to begin with. They're not actual ownership at all. They're some kind of special sharing-of-future-profits agreement.

The setup for this - the clause saying that if you didn't sign an exit agreement within sixty days the company would reclaim your equity - was in the equity plan and grant documents: https://x.com/KelseyTuoc/status/1791584341669396560

Not a lawyer, but "general release of claims" seems like a term of art which I would expect to be a something that would waive your right to sue, and not an agreement that includes a non-disparagement clause.

I don't think the controversy stems from any provisions in the equity plan and grant documents. The Vox article only talked about the off-boarding NDA, and that's all that Altman is talking about here:

> there was a provision about potential equity cancellation in our previous exit docs; although we never clawed anything back, it should never have been something we had in any documents or communication.

Mind you, Altman could still be lying and that would be very much in character, but this also sounds like a very plausible explanation for the hubbub.

RSUs aren't technically equity. Did Altman ever address the tangential conversation about RSU cancellation?

Templates. I mean come on. Most people use templates. They don't hand craft exit documents. When starting a company you are focused on building.

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