Facebook CTO Bret Taylor Departs (For Start-Ups Unknown)
allthingsd.com
allthingsd.com
Interpretation: More departures coming soon.
What am I to make of this? I don't know who to trust anymore.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
[edit] And don't get me started on Aristotle's politics, which in my view were largely self interested, shallow and myopic. For example -
"But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection, others for rule."
Now if we compare that to the story of Diogenes when he was taken and sold as a slave and then asked by the gangmaster what he was useful for, he apparently told them that he was quite useless at everything, other than as a governer of others. Also he apparently told Alexander the Great "I was searching through some bones for those of your father, but could not distinguish them from those of a slave."
Edit: oddly enough, since one job of an executive is to keep up appearances, it makes people doubly curious when an executive seems to not worry about appearances.
I think it's a good thing. FB has become an autonomous monolith. Talent leaving to create new start ups is a good thing. FB will attract enough mediocrity to keep it running.
Real talent is never satisfied with current achievement and is always ready to take a bigger challenge.
More SHOULD follow suit, taking the FU money with them and do wonderful things. Their duty at FB is done.
When spring is in the air, I hope many new blossoms will bloom.
Round and round
With love we'll find a way just give it time
Round and round
What comes around goes around
I'll tell you why
- Ratt Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice
"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.一叶落，而天下知秋矣
Word by word translation is
One Leaf Falls, And the world knows Autumn.
He was one of the early employees at Linden Lab (makers of Second Life) and was best known (to SL residents) as the coder who created the Linden Scripting Language. The story goes that he created it quickly, like over a weekend. (It did get improved after that though!)
What is likely to have happened here? Did an institutional investor get wind of the story early? If so, why did the share price jump up?
Typically, if you're in a position where you'll often have material non-public info you need to create a trading plan in advance, or otherwise remove your ability to trade the company based on all the secret stuff you're always going to be knowing. Look at it that way and for the CTO of a large public co., their own departure is just going to be the last of many, many pieces of info make it problematic for them to trade the stock.
I hope more good things will come out from him.
Determine whether the currently logged in user is friends with another user, Bret Taylor (Try this query):
SELECT uid1, uid2 FROM friend WHERE uid1 = me() AND uid2 = 220439
There was also a clue in their S-1 [1] where his name is not included in the 'executive compensation' section, generally that is a sign that either he won't be continuing on with the company going forward (likely case) or that if he quit it would not materially affect the company (hence not of interest in the prospectus)
Given that he's been there 3 years out of four, has a C level position, and all of the other C level jobs have multiple millions of shares, lets give him a 'lowball' grant of 4M shares. So 3/4 are vested and that is 3M shares. So FB is currently $30/share but lets say he sells all 3M and pays 50% in taxes. Lets be even more pessimistic and say that his sale pushes the price down to $25, that is 1.5M shares @ $25 that he pockets free and clear. So $37.5M in the bank. Perhaps he did this math and said, "You know, I've got lots of things I want to do and that chunk of money would give me the freedom to do it until I die."
[1] http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/0001193125120...
He probably has restricted stock units and common stock with a buyback provision. As far as I know, Facebook stopped granting options before Taylor joined Facebook.
Also a lot of C level execs work on different vesting schedule and get allocated shares as bonuses. The whole point being this question is largely moot on a lot of levels any stock left on the table is probably a very small portion of what he was bound to make on the IPO via a standard option vesting.