Employee Finance Hiring Option Pool 
SoCal CTO
SEPTEMBER 27, 2011
I was asked by a reader how much equity he should give out to early employees and to service providers in a very early stage startup. Founders vs. Early Employees To help with this discussion, let me start with a definition of "early employee." I'll get to service providers in a later post. Which means n = (i - 1)/i.
Feld Thoughts
SEPTEMBER 2, 2011
As Finance Fridays continues, we are introducing the concept of the Cap Table. This week they set out to create their cap table and hire a CTO. As first time entrepreneurs they did not create an employee options pool; we’ll fix that in a little while. Below you can see Jane and Dick own 55% and 45%, respectively.
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The Next Web
OCTOBER 7, 2013
They were referring to non-founder engineers, most commonly the first hire for technology businesses. From the perspective of my outside friends, why are employees that so clearly impact the growth trajectory of a company look like they’re getting screwed? These common shares are granted to founders from the beginning, not employees.
Rob Go
JUNE 17, 2014
In my last post about raising seed vs. jumping straight to A, I received a good comment from Chris Woods that my analysis neglected to include the impact of option pools that are created at each financing round. Essentially, the new investor wants there to be a certain % of options available to employees after they invest.
venturehacks.com
OCTOBER 21, 2010
SUPPORTED BY Products Archives @venturehacks Books AngelList About RSS The Option Pool Shuffle by Nivi on April 10th, 2007 “Follow the money card!&# – The Inside Man, Three-Card Shuffle Summary: Don’t let your investors determine the size of the option pool for you. Don’t lose this game. share to $1.00/share:
The Next Web
JUNE 15, 2012
From Silicon Valley to Peoria, Illinois, cash-strapped startups look for inventive way to finance their business – often handing out equity to employees, consultants, vendors, and other service providers. However, if you are thinking about compensating non-employees with equity, make sure to consider the following points: 1.
Hunter Walker
AUGUST 7, 2017
But employee option pool is important enough that I wanted to briefly expand upon my comment above. While you should expect these sorts of hires to take below market cash comp versus what Google is paying them, this tradeoff needs to be replaced with equity upside.
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