If the Shoe Fits: Do You Respect or Disrespect the Startup Social Contract?
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
A couple of years ago serial entrepreneur Matt Weeks wrote about the Startup Social Contract founders have with their people, with a focus on stock options.
Having worked with startups since the early Eighties I’m intimately aware of how fragile this contract has become and how often it has been totally disregarded in the last decade.
The result should come as no surprise.
Any time a group of workers feel they are being taken advantage of someone will always step up, marshal resources and organize them, especially when the workers are highly educated.
That’s why founders have only themselves to blame for the uprising among the people they need the most.
Employees at startups are being taken advantage of, said Chris Zaharias, who was joined by rally partner and stock option counsel Mary Russell. Founders and venture capitalists make the negotiations around equity (or how much of the company employees own) intentionally confusing.
Equity fairness and transparency is the reason we developed Option Sanity.
While I don’t agree with all the content in the “Startup Employee Equity Bill of Rights,” it certainly reflects how badly the Startup Social Contract is being abused, if not totally disregarded.
And, as Matt says, “If the workers and/or the exec team come to disrespect, disbelieve or ignore this social contract, the company is lost.”
Image credit: HikingArtist
