Bought out (times two!)
It has been an interesting week work-wise, for both me and Merhawk. Both of our companies were bought out!
Hers will be acquired by a publicly traded bioscience company. They made an all-cash deal. Her stock options vest immediately (hooray for the "poison pill"!) and should be bought out for cash as part of the deal. We'll learn more about the valuation soon. Personally I'm expecting the windfall will be bigger than "vacation in Hawaii" but much smaller than "it's time to move to a bigger house".
My company's acquisition was not so sweet. A private equity firm bought us out from our venture capital investors. As part of this deal, all common stock was cancelled. So my stock options just went poof.
I'm not taking it too badly. Not yet, anyway. I joined the company 12-13 years after its founding so I never planned on striking it rich with the options. To really strike it rich you've got to get in early, when the company is still doubling in growth (or more!) year over year for several years. I came in after that phase. I didn't expect the options would ever yield "move to a bigger house" type money but I did figure they might eventually be worth a few trips to Hawaii. It's troubling that the options were just taken away from us. And while I don't feel bad myself (yet) I do feel bad for the people who've been at the company a long time. My boss, for example. Just this morning LinkedIn asked me to congratulate him on his 13th anniversary at the company. Ouch.
[[Note: both of these acquisitions were announced publicly and covered in the press. But while certain details of the transactions have been publicized, I'm not naming companies as I don't want our opinions of the situation publicized.]]
Hers will be acquired by a publicly traded bioscience company. They made an all-cash deal. Her stock options vest immediately (hooray for the "poison pill"!) and should be bought out for cash as part of the deal. We'll learn more about the valuation soon. Personally I'm expecting the windfall will be bigger than "vacation in Hawaii" but much smaller than "it's time to move to a bigger house".
My company's acquisition was not so sweet. A private equity firm bought us out from our venture capital investors. As part of this deal, all common stock was cancelled. So my stock options just went poof.
I'm not taking it too badly. Not yet, anyway. I joined the company 12-13 years after its founding so I never planned on striking it rich with the options. To really strike it rich you've got to get in early, when the company is still doubling in growth (or more!) year over year for several years. I came in after that phase. I didn't expect the options would ever yield "move to a bigger house" type money but I did figure they might eventually be worth a few trips to Hawaii. It's troubling that the options were just taken away from us. And while I don't feel bad myself (yet) I do feel bad for the people who've been at the company a long time. My boss, for example. Just this morning LinkedIn asked me to congratulate him on his 13th anniversary at the company. Ouch.
[[Note: both of these acquisitions were announced publicly and covered in the press. But while certain details of the transactions have been publicized, I'm not naming companies as I don't want our opinions of the situation publicized.]]