Comment by nikolayasdf123
Comment by nikolayasdf123 4 days ago
wonder what they employees think. will they ever IPO and cashout?
Comment by nikolayasdf123 4 days ago
wonder what they employees think. will they ever IPO and cashout?
It didn’t happen as they were careful to make a tender before expiration hit anyone.
Options can a significant portion of sign on bonus but they typically vest over several years so I guess they are hoping for an IPO eventually. IMHO Databricks will be overtaken by "events" including AI disillusionment, broader open source tools and broader education across the workforce. So the eventual IPO will not happen.
> Yeah I think this is how it usually works, and yeah at $100bn valuation they are now 100% worthless, because investors get paid first, and there's no way they'll get sold or IPO for more than $100bn.
Not quite right? Because the raise-implied valuation doesnt account for preferences. The IPO could be for 50bn and the latest investors could do well given the preference stack of first money outs in later rounds.
Since this year the employees are vesting RSUs (not options, and also no expiry date) quorterly now, they sell a portion of them (automatically) and pay taxes to the government at each vesting event, as the expiry date no longer exists. For liquidity there are tenders where employees sell their stock privately, so the employees no longer need IPO to cash out.
Just to clarify - for many years employees were getting the RSUs not options, just with the expiratation date attached - which is gone since this year.