I'm writing a piece (dropping next week) that walks through three companies that actually got equity right for their people.
Different approaches, different stages, but each one fixed something that's genuinely broken about how most startups do equity.
While researching it, one stat floored me: 76% of all stock options go unexercised.
Not because people don't want ownership. Because the system is stacked against them in various ways:
People don't understand what they hold,
Can't afford to exercise, or
Just flat out don't believe it'll ever be worth anything.
There's been some brutal stories over the years.
Even I have bought options, with my own hard earned money, and am never sure if I'll ever see it again or how the company is even doing as a signal of it's likelihood.
But I want to hear yours.
Whether you were on the receiving end of an equity program that let you down, or you were the one trying to administer a program you knew wasn't working, I want to know:
Where did it go wrong?
What would you change if you could redesign it?
Did you ever have to explain to someone that their equity was worth less than they thought? How did that go?
Just the reality of what happened and what it felt like.
The piece coming out next week covers some genuinely different approaches. But I think the failure stories are just as important for understanding why this stuff matters.
Drop your experience below. Even a one-liner helps.