Equity Puns

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[UPDATE: my post on Blind has now also been removed, likely due to being flagged by LoanStreet]

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Update to this original post

LoanStreet seems to be at work trying to sweep their misconduct under the rug so they can continue to mistreat employees with impunity.

This morning Glassdoor emailed me to let me know they had removed my post:

We determined your review does not meet these guidelines because you have mentioned or discussed yourself or another individual by name, title or association. As part of our guidelines, we do not allow users within their reviews to single out themselves or non-C-level executives in a negative light. We only permit discussion of specific individuals when they are C-level executives and therefore represent the public face of the company and have great influence over the broad work environment.

The thing is, all the people named in my Glassdoor review are C-level executives:

• Cofounder/CEO Ian Lampl
• Cofounder/former COO Christopher Wu
• CTO Larry Adams (he's listed as VP Engineering on LoanStreet's website, but there is no engineering/tech manager above him)

I had already been through multiple rounds of review with Glassdoor prior to the review being posted. In the end, a senior member of the Glassdoor content review team confirmed that my review met guidelines and was approved. Screenshot here.

It's disappointing to see Glassdoor allow a company to hide an approved post that dozens of people marked as helpful (thank you, r/cscareerquestions!). I will try to get the post back up.

Glassdoor may have lost its spine, but please upvote my Blind post to get the word out.

Finally, thank you to the mods of r/cscareerquestions and to Reddit for showing some integrity and allowing us to do what members of communities should do: warn each other of predators so that only one person needs to be hurt before the entire group learns how to be safe.

I worked for LoanStreet in NYC. Small company. <30 people. Cofounder/COO Christopher Wu told me my equity would start vesting after 12 months. After I started, they told me that they actually meant 12 months after the next quarterly board meeting, and I would only start to vest after 16 months. I asked them to change it. They dragged their feet for months, pretending to work on it. After 15 months of praising my work, they abruptly fired me just as COVID froze tech hiring, refused to vest any of the promised equity, and the head of HR (who is also the wife of the CEO and who had spoken to me warmly just the night before) refused to answer my phone calls asking for an explanation. LoanStreet is run by fancy lawyers and they were crafty with the offer letter language so I had no legal case. The offer letter said the details of the equity compensation would come in a different document, which they didn't provide for almost a year after I joined. If it was a good-faith error, they could have done the right thing and granted me what I earned. They chose not to.

The only problem I was aware of was that the CTO Larry Adams was upset with me because I discovered one of his favorite engineers had broken mission-critical code, and I fixed it. Basically this guy was making changes to financial code he didn't understand, and had erroneously +1'd in one place so he ended up -1'ing in a bunch of other places to offset the initial error and get the tests to pass even though some key, untested functionality was now broken. The engineer didn't remember why he had made the change and refused to help me investigate why tests were failing. I privately spoke to him to ask him to be careful with the code in that area because it was tricky, to leave comments if he writes something that might be confusing to another reader, and to feel free to ask me for help in that area since it was my niche in the company. I was trying to do him a favor by not making a more public stink about it. He immediately complained to the CTO, who called me 30 min later to sternly tell me that there was no error because we had tests that would have caught it and to scold me for going out of my lane. I wrote a failing test proving that the error existed and that our tests were incomplete. Then I fixed the error. He brusquely told me to fix an

My girlfriend and I have lived together since August 2019 in a rental condo. My income is $320k and her is $37k, and we split our monthly rent of $2300 so that I pay $1600 and she pays $700. I pay for our internet cost of $100/mo, and we have no other shared utilities since the unit has heating/water included.

My girlfriend works about 30-35 hours per week, at a job that I got her through my connections, and I work between 60-100 hours per week working two jobs. As a side effect of this, she takes care of most of the household tasks and cooks most of our meals. She spends about 1.5 hours per day doing household chores and cooking.

Now, I've recently purchased a condo with money that I pulled together during the last year or so. Sadly, COVID keeping us at home let me save up a decent down payment. I also was able to buy a car last year, to help us get around safely during the pandemic. We also used that car to teach my girlfriend how to drive.

The condo I bought was $970k and is in one of the most desirable neighbourhoods in our city, and it's a 1050 square foot, 2 bedroom plus den, 2 bathroom unit. An upgrade from our current rental unit that is about 750 square feet, which is a 1 plus den with 2 bathrooms. The monthly cost for my new condo will be $4350 (mortgage plus maintenance fees).

My girlfriend and I planned to move into my new condo on July 1st when I close. My girlfriend had insisted on paying rent in the new place, since she knows the cost for me will be much higher than our current living situation. We agreed she could pay $700/month so that her costs don't change from our current rent.

My girlfriend didn't help with the down payment and she isn't on the mortgage or the title. I had a family lawyer put together a cohabitation agreement to ensure that the condo would remain mine alone. Now, my girlfriend is saying that she thinks she deserves some equity in the property based on the rent that she would pay. It doesn't make sense to me! She pays rent now to our landlords and doesn't expect any ownership or equity, so why would I agree to give her equity in a condo that I own? Am I being an asshole here?

Edit: Adding a few additional details

1. We agreed that in 3-4 years we would buy a detached home together, when she's had time to save up money to contribute to the down payment, and we would jointly own that property together, proportionally.
2. Our city is so expensive that she cannot buy a property on her income anywhere, no

>GameStop disclosed on April 5, 2021 that it had filed a prospectus supplement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to offer and sell up to a maximum of 3,500,000 shares of its common stock from time to time through the ATM Offering. The Company ultimately sold 3,500,000 shares of common stock and generated aggregate gross proceeds before commissions and offering expenses of approximately $551,000,000. Net proceeds will be used to continue accelerating GameStop’s transformation as well as for general corporate purposes and further strengthening the Company’s balance sheet.

This is amazing news. GME sold 3.5 mil shares at ~$157 to raise 550 mil. The company has zero debt and now has signicant money to fund their transformation moving forward. Stock is currently up 12% in AH, reaching $190. GME is now primed for another run and the highly anticipated short squeeze is that much closer to reality.

https://gamestop.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/gamestop-completes-market-equity-offering-program

What if a credit related event caused liquidity to dry up. What dividend paying stocks would you buy if there was a 60% haircut on nearly all companies? Leading to dividend yields going up (assuming dividends aren't cut). I would try to avoid companies with debt financed dividend (say Exxon). The risk is that companies can cut their dividend if they have issues with their debt or sales drop off.

Volatility can be your friend if you have cash on the sidelines.

I'm focusing on companies that have recession proof dividends.

My picks:

Altria, EPD, BTI, EVA, LMNR, VZ

Energy, tobacco, farmland

Thoughts?

The capital raise provides buffer for GME’s balance sheet, but also solidifies material damage to GME due to naked short selling. Ryan Cohen is playing 5D chess. When the voting results are revealed, hedges r fuk.

Also thank you Wes Christian for an awesome and insightful AMA. Definitely grew some wrinkles on this brain today.

(I’m posting link to position at bottom of page. Also, my account is a margin account but my position is all cash. Fidelity has WKHS listed as unmargineable still)

Updated Reasons:

1. I’m fucking crazy still - maybe even a bit crazier today

2. the float is undoubtedly still 40-60% short depending on who you believe or what you read. That said, I think it’s closer to 70% short due to hedge fund fuckers shorting synthetic shares against deep in the money calls. Ortex lists 70 million or so shares as out on on loan - so where did that extra 15% of loaned out shares go???

3. either way there are somewhere between 40-70 million+ shares short

4. float is only 112-115 million total now

5. retail already controls a majority - that’s huge

6. it’s a meme company by label, not status. No debt, huge EV orders on books, $200 mil+ in bank. Large government contracts pending and deals with UPS and Ryder on the books already.

7. Biden and his EV push - that’s huge folks

8. shorts can’t cover without gargling buckshot and running us into the hundreds and we are just fine with that

9. ORTEX has twice now issued a short squeeze signal for WKHS!! They are the best options research house in the world in my opinion and they successfully called the AMC squeeze. I believe that we have bigger squeeze short potential than Volkswagen, which was only 15% short when Porsche took control of 70% of the shares and lit the dynamite. We are 40-70% short and control the float already. Institutions own the rest and they are long-term holders so doubtful they’ll sell into the squeeze which lets us set the “fuck you” out price for the hedge funds

10. pipe-hittin’ apes here and multiplying. We have 122,000+ members on stocktwits alone, where we started this movement a month ago, and over 60,000 on Yahoo. How many on WSB? No idea but please help us recruit there…

11. Catalysts galore. Lots and lots of them

12. FAA approval of WKHS patented drone technology imminent.

13. WSB hates us and deletes our posts. They banned me from posting yesterday (🖕). Why are they so worried about us? Cuz we threaten their AMC and GME position. Folks are liquidating and coming to $WKHS in droves. Help us spread word there please

14. Will Meade baby!!! Will Meade is with us - check out his Twitter feed

15. did I mention 40-70% short with a tiny fucking float?

16. almost no shares left to loan. Utilization was 100% a few days ago and now it seems to only fluctuate up when a hedge fund liquidates a

Hi there,

I have been offered to join a startup that has 3 founders. They already recruited one developer and I'd be the second one. They offered me 2% of the company stock in reverse-vesting (0,5% every 6 months). Their plan is to grow the company and sell it in a few years. Their current MRR is around $15k, they forecast that they will be able to make 180k in two/three years after signing a multi-year contract with their potential big client. They need to improve their tech in order to land them, so that's why they started to recruit. The industry is growing very fast, there is a lot of money on the table, so I'm sure that the company will grow. I'm not sure if this deal is worthwhile for me.

I am supposed to work around on average 10-15 hours a week for at least 3 years.

What they claim is that reaching $180k in MRR would value the company around 10.8M (5-year revenue), so when they sell, I'd get $216k. They do not want to raise any money, so my shares won't get diluted.

Is this deal even worth considering, given that I have no guarantee that I'll earn any money? Should I ask for a regular salary or more equity?

I was recently introduced to a CEO who has a startup in the works, and is about to close a pre-seed from angel investors that will bring in about 800k. I was introduced to them by one of the angel investors, as they have a tremendous amount of experience in this industry, but they are not tech oriented. I plan to join as a co-founder and CTO, with $0 salary and a 4 year vesting cliff on whatever shares I'm granted.

My question is, how much should I reasonably ask for at this stage? The company is still very much in the idea phase, with the beginning of an MVP in place and a couple of partners ready to sign up when an MVP is ready. All of the startups I've been involved with in the past were ones started by myself, so I'm really not sure what kind of equity is reasonable for me as a co-founder. I've read some articles saying "up to 10%" and some saying to split it evenly amongst co-founders. Especially with an 800k pre-seed round, I feel as though my equity should be less than that of the CEO.

I emailed this through to Vanguard, and /u/PattheShuffler thought it would be a good idea to post here.

This is the main reason for the extremely high distributions in VDHG, which you have to pay tax on now rather than delaying until years or decades later, where you would have been able to earn money on those delayed tax payments all that time.

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Hi,

I'm emailing about the way Vanguard handles taxation on currency hedging distributions for VGAD and the managed fund equivalent.

Vanguard has the option to use the Taxation of Financial Arrangements (ToFA) provisions in the Tax Act, which it currently does not. I've conversed with someone who said they contacted Vanguard and was told, ‘Our equity funds do not make a TOFA election, but our fixed income products do.’. That it isn't used is also clear based on years of no distributions and extremely high distributions at other times.

As a result of not using ToFA election, gains/losses on the forward contracts involved in the hedging process are taxed independently of the capital gains/losses on the investment. So when the Australian dollar appreciates, all investors in the fund are liable for a huge tax bill even if the return on the actual investment is zero or negative. The result is extreme tax-inefficiency for the investor (which is why I am writing to you).

Shares are one of the most tax-effective investments available due to the tax-effective treatment of capital gains. There are three reasons for this.

1. The 50% CGT discount
   If an individual has held shares for more than 12 months before selling, 50% is taken off their capital gain before adding it to their income tax return.
2. The ability to compound unrealised gains
   Tax is not paid on capital gains until the shares are sold. The result is that earnings can continue (and earnings on those earnings, and so on - for decades) for capital gains tax owed but not yet paid.
3. The ability to sell down when on a lower marginal tax rate
   Following the previous point of not paying tax on capital gains until the shares are sold, far less tax can be paid by waiting to sell until retirement when on a much lower marginal tax rate.

Collectively, the advantage of the capital gains component of shares is enormous.

VGAD and the managed fund equivalent combined hold almost 8 billion (billion, with a 'b') dollars of as

UPDATE: I contacted Blind and they said there had been a “technical error” and that they reactivated the post. Pretty weird. Makes me wonder if there was an internal conflict within Blind on what to do, but I appreciate the quick response to make things right.

Update to this post, about LoanStreet (likely) getting my Glassdoor post removed

LoanStreet appears to be continuing to try to bury evidence of its mistreatment of employees. First my Glassdoor review was removed, and now TeamBlind has removed my post which was the top "hot" post today in the tech industry forum. The stated reason is "invasion of privacy," but the post included no names other than "LoanStreet."

This is the behavior of a company with something shameful to hide.

Once again, major respect to Reddit and r/cscareerquestions for having a spine and allowing this important info to remain accessible

Copying the post text:

I worked for LoanStreet in NYC. Small company. <30 people. Before I was hired, they told me my equity would start vesting after 12 months. After I started, they told me that they actually meant 12 months after the next quarterly board meeting, and I would only start to vest after 16 months. I asked them to change it. They dragged their feet for months, pretending to work on it. After 15 months of praising my work, they abruptly fired me just as COVID froze tech hiring, refused to vest any of the promised equity, and HR refused to answer my phone calls asking for an explanation. LoanStreet is run by fancy lawyers and they were crafty with the offer letter language so I had no legal case. The offer letter said the details of the equity compensation would come in a different document, which they didn't provide for almost a year after I joined. If it was a good-faith error, they could have done the right thing and granted me what I earned. They chose not to.

*I didn't feel I could push hard for them to include details in the offer letter because I was a new boot camp grad without a CS degree and having trouble getting interviews. I needed a foot in the door. A large percentage of LoanStreet engineers when I was there were bootcamp grads. I'm not sure if that's because LoanStreet can't get better engineers or just because LoanStr