It seems pretty risky to go out telling non-accredited (and likely naive) investors how much money they could make. While all the employees getting access to this equity are “insiders,” this seems like it could come back to haunt them if an unfortunate situation such as a fire sale acquihire occurs.
The acquisition scenarios are definitely misleading. Employees love to take future acquisition values and multiply it by their current equity stake, but it's just 100% incorrect because it ignores future dilution from subsequent rounds of investment, liquid preferences by investors, settlement of outstanding debts, etc which will absolutely reduce their cut.
Now it's one thing for employees to personally delude themselves, but it's just flat out wrong for the company to tell its employees what they can expect to make in different exit scenarios. The company is definitely opening itself up to litigation when, say, Employee 12 (0.5% equity currently) only gets something like $1M after a $600M acquisition, instead of the $3M you promised.
It would be so easy to price the stocks if they could be traded in the open market. Professional traders and collective-behavior would solve this for everyone.
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My guess with pay in the open is the gap is smaller, as more info favors those making the least.
Now it's one thing for employees to personally delude themselves, but it's just flat out wrong for the company to tell its employees what they can expect to make in different exit scenarios. The company is definitely opening itself up to litigation when, say, Employee 12 (0.5% equity currently) only gets something like $1M after a $600M acquisition, instead of the $3M you promised.