HACKER Q&A
📣 sparkleyshoddey

What are the chances layoffs were pretext to end expensive early grants?


I am / was an early employee at a now valuable company. My initial grant was still vesting. I was informed I was let go in a layoff, though the rest of my team or organization was not impacted. I was well-liked and had no performance issues. Another employee in my situation was also laid off. What are the chances we were selected not because of any of the stated reasons such as restructuring, but instead because our remaining equity grant was more valuable than the company wanted to pay out? What questions should I be asking?

  👤 brntsllvn Accepted Answer ✓
I'm guessing your employment was at-will, and if so your employer has the right to terminate you for any or no reason.

There are some exceptions, including various forms of unlawful discrimination, which would warrant a convo with an employment attorney.

There's also the possibility of pro-rata equity (or cash) payout if you happened to be between two vesting periods. If they didn't give this to you, you might request it before signing your separation agreement, which is one final moment you have a little bit of leverage.

👤 rl1987
Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. As should be expected, you lost the lottery. Employees getting rich from startup equity is dependent on a number of low probability events happening and the remaining employees will most likely not be millionaires anytime soon.

You should just move on, in my opinion.

👤 markus_zhang
I never count unvested stocks into ToC, guess I don't have high expectations about those.
👤 mountainriver
I haven’t heard of this but it makes sense. It’s possible they did a comp/output comparison and saw that you could be replaced for much cheaper.

Pretty crappy way to do it, I’d love to hear if others have similar experiences