ESOP
topic on 5 shows · 14 statements across 13 episodes
the Neon Show 
A Product Market Fit Show 
Top Founders 
How I Built This 
the a16z Podcast
14 statements about ESOP, every show
Gabbert: Room & Board transitioned to ESOP via 100% owner financing
“The way that makes sense for us to do it is have a hundred percent owner finance, so there's no bank loan involved. We just, we gave a loan to the employees, basically, the ESOP, to buy the shares from the owners at an established price”
Srugo: Stacking SAFEs Obscures Real Ownership and Employee ESOP Percentages
“As long as it's one safe, you start stacking safes. And I just don't like the confusion that that brings to, you know, what does that actual ownership, you know, look like? Like when I'm giving out ESOP, what percent am I really giving?”
Mark Cuban claims ESOP participants earn dramatically more than union workers
“What's the earnings of people who are in ESOPs? Employee stock ownership plan versus everybody else. It's dramatically higher. It's not even close. They make more than union employees.”
Walker: Pre-seed startup ESOP option pools average about 10%
“ESOPs for pre-seed companies on Carta started about 10%.”
Chanchani: Indian startups will create hundreds of thousands of wealthy employees
“I think that third wave is being brought about by our startups where, you know, we'll probably end up seeing, you know, lakhs of people actually you know, becoming rich. By being simply employees rather than, you know, becoming founders”
Srugo: Post-money SAFEs are the most dilutive fundraising instrument for founders
“There's nothing more diluted for a founder than a post money safe. It's, and I love post money saves. I shouldn't be saying this. I really shouldn't be saying this because I will turn every prep around to a post money save as I can. Post money saves basically …”
Taneja: Around 150-200 of Purplle's 600 office employees hold ESOPs
“Out of maybe 600 people who work in our offices, about 200, maybe one 50 of them actually have ESOPs, and these are significant value ESOPs.”
Taneja: All Purplle blue-collar office staff receive ESOPs
“Who are blue-collared workers you know, they help clean the office, their janitors, and so on and so forth. All of them actually have ESOPs within the firm.”
BigBasket created new employee stock option pools at every single fundraising round
“So we have a lot at every round of fund raise to make sure that some modern esops are created.”
Symbl.ai increased its employee stock option pool to 15% at Series A
“We did a 10, 10% at our previous rounds, but this round specifically, we set up actually 15%.”
Flipkart pioneered mandatory ESOP grants for junior engineers in India
“Flipkart, for example, was one of the first few companies at any kind of realist scale, which actually shared ownership around. So like some of my friends, younger brothers who joined Flipkart, even as junior engineer, all of them got ESOPs mandatory. And now …”
Bajpai: ixigo granted 2.3% of company equity to all employees in July 2020
“You know, we gave away about 2.3% of the company in July right from the beyond to, you know, everyone in our leadership team, everyone owns shares and these were given at a deep discount so that everybody benefits when things comes back.”
Fisher: Sold part of the company to employees, creating a 40% ESOP
“What I did do was sell part of the business to the employees. So we are 40% ESOP, employee-owned”