Equity advice of all shapes and sizes!

When it comes to equity and how it works I am 100% a rookie. I've had it in the past with a smaller start up. I know this tends to be geared mostly towards the company being sold.


What I want to know is what happens to your equity when a company goes public? Does your vesting period speed up, how does per share price adjsut, what has your experience been?


At the same time what happens if the company remains private even after your equity has fully vested?


Any insight or experience is appreciated as always!


#staysavage

5
salesnerd
WR Officer
2
Head of Growth
The short answer is: it depends. Sometimes you get an accelerated vesting period, sometimes you don’t. 

Your strike price is your strike price though. If you get stock options at $1/share and the company gets acquired for $10/share you bet $9/share
DaveyDimes
Acclaimed Answer
0
Account Executive
@salesnerd sorry for the delay. So what happens if you go through your vesting period and the company never sells or goes public? Do you just sell back whenever they are willing to buy back equity?
salesnerd
WR Officer
0
Head of Growth
Well vesting means you’re allowed to buy the stock, not that you get the equity. If you buy it and they never exit, you lose the money. 
GuyBews
Opinionated
1
Director
If you’re still curious, check out Carta- they have a lot of good education on this, with calculators:

https://carta.com/blog/value-equity-offer-startup-equity-calculator/


Exercising:
ideally, if you think your company is going to exit, you’ll want to exercise your shares before the public event, so you pay the lowest possible taxes on your capital gains

if your company never gets acquired and never IPOs then your equity is worthless, unless they tender offer (where the company will buy your shares for a price, usually above your strike)
Cyberjarre
Politicker
0
BDR
For selling to: I have a Crunchbase Pro account for prospecting.
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