Episode 372: Equity and getting interrupted in Zoom meetings

Sep 4, 2023

The podcast discusses challenges of startup equity and valuation, navigating conversations about equity with managers, and the frustration of being interrupted in remote meetings, including solutions like raising hands and using the chat feature in Zoom.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

Navigating Startup Equity and Valuation

02:25 • 14min

Retention incentives, building a CSV importer, and interruptions in remote meetings

16:31 • 4min

Interruptions in Zoom Meetings and the Importance of Being Unique and Valuable

20:29 • 8min

Challenges of Fast Speech and Interruptions

28:28 • 6min

Dealing with Interruptions in Zoom Meetings and the Joy of Interrupting

34:58 • 2min

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In this episode, Dave and Jamison answer these questions:

I joined a startup at the peak of the tech bubble which sadly means that my equity was based on the company’s valuation which was very over-valued. To corroborate this, the company has not grown much in terms of users or revenue. The company also had a layoff just like many startups.

As even public or unicorn tech companies are often devalued by 50-75%, I think it is reasonable to say that my equity grant is worth a lot less and I’m being underpaid.

Most likely, I will leave the company anyway for some other reasons, but I was curious whether it would be reasonable to ask for significantly more equity. From a pure financial point of view, if a company is valued 75% less then asking for 2x does not seem too unreasonable to me, but I can see that it can be seen as too calculative and the company may be unwilling to grant more equity to that extent. What do you think?

Assuming that asking for more equity grants is not unreasonable, I’m also curious how you would bring it up to your manager without looking to be too greedy.
I have been a software engineer at a large finance firm for around 2 years out of school. My team works in a hybrid model but most of my meetings are still remote.

At least once every couple weeks when I try to ask a question or otherwise participate on a group call or more rarely when I’m responding to a question about my own topic I get interrupted and completely cut off by more senior people on the call, such as my manager, product owner or architect. The other developers and technical people rarely interrupt each other.

Some other details: I try to wait for pauses before speaking, and have tried reiterating after the new topic changes again but often it’s just too late. I also tried ignoring the interruption and continuing to speak but I really don’t enjoy having to do this in order to be heard and it feels disrespectful.

I’ve noticed this also happens to other more junior members of the team, most of whom are much more reserved in meetings than I am. Another thing to mention is its not really a problem for me during in-person meetings.

Am I being a special snowflake to find this annoying and humiliating or is it just par for the course of being a more junior member of the team?