alt Hacker NewsI don't think you can treat owners of the same shares differently in the way this is suggesting. The VC shareholders and the employee shareholders are probably on equal footing and getting the same price. VCs will own preferred but I doubt that is enough to windfall them at the expense of the common shareholders.
So if VCs are getting paid a certain share price, employees with vested stock almost certainly are getting the same price. And probably employees with vested options can either exercise now or will just get paid the net during the transaction.
Yes, the company is probably doomed so people staying there are not doing well, but they also just got paid a 3x premium on their vested equity.
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EXCELLENT analysis Ossama
>"Non-exclusive" means no monopoly concerns (anyone can license Groq's tech)
- except that you can bet only Nvidia gets the absolute top of the line architechture and design - - - - - all others get 2nd best or worse.
>The "non-exclusive" label is legal fiction. When you acquire all the IP and hire everyone who knows >how to use it, exclusivity doesn't matter.
But the “non exclusive” part is what significantly weakens any case the US DOJ may consider bringing forth, if at all..
If I was in the Nvidia camp I would be admiring how brillant the strategy was all formulated, in fact, I have to believe that IP attorney's were consulted on how best to avoid DOJ scrutiny.
On the other hand, there will be those who can see how this limits competition. It would be interesting to have some of our HN attorneys weigh on on this deal.
As you said about the remaining employees: . . . Their equity is worthless. . . <they> got nothing while Chamath made $2B. Is Chamath a conniving scoundrel ? I'll let others judge. Maybe someday we'll see Zuckerberg and Chamath in the ring together - - Elon seems to have bowed out.
It’s also possible that both are correct, and the deal is actually illegal. It’s pretty common for deals to push close to the line to extract maximum value for one set of parties, and sometimes this is misjudged.
I guess we just need to wait and see if the common holders are happy or sue.
very likely the VCs have a clause that allows them to trade at every re-valuation, whereas employees are locked in vested periods, and likely to see their stocks devalue by the time they can cash out.
> owners of the same shares differently
it’s true, you can’t. however the VCs and the employees don’t own the same shares. even the VCs in different rounds don’t own the same shares.
where TFA analysis falls short is assuming employees have to be paid out at all. since the execs are moving over, there’s definitely some equity being traded in this “non-exclusive licensing deal” but it doesn’t have to involve common stock at all.
Yes I think you are right here. The purchase price is high enough for all parties to be get return on their shares, and whilst there will be a waterfall for who gets paid first, I doubt many people will be unhappy with this deal.
Unlike Windsurf... who's 2nd employee only got 1% of what their shares were worth (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44673296)