译者：张苏月

股权分配是一家创业公司无法绕过的问题，本文列举的七个因素可能在创始人创办公司或加入另一家公司时有所借鉴。



One of the things that struck me most during our recent pieces on startup employee option plans is how things that impact the value of those options aren’t well understood, even if communicated or known at the onset. Many people reported feelings of a sort of “sticker shock” (or reverse!) on leaving their first startup. Meanwhile, founders genuinely want to do right by their employees and other stakeholders — but owning part of a company isn’t a static, fixed thing; it’s fluid, and there are a number of factors that could change the overall ownership equation over time.

近期讨论启动员工股权计划问题时，我发现即使是公司创业之初已经沟通好或内部确定了，但还有些影响员工股权价值的因素需要考虑。许多人在离开第一家创业公司时都表现出了一种“sticker shock（“标签震惊”，也就是看了标签上的价钱后震惊不已，形容定价太高）的状态。创业者也想真正为员工和其他利益相关者做正确的事,但作为公司决策者之一，事情并不是那么简单的，很多事情非常复杂、有许多不确定因素。随着时间的推移，有很多因素会改变整个公司所有权的分配。

Part of the problem is the sheer amount and complexity of information required to understand equity and ownership in the first place. Which is why many founders are working hard to build trust while navigating shifting ownership — their own, their employees’, their co-founders’, their investors — along the way, often dedicating resources to educating folks. There are also some great overviews, templates, and guides out there now that cover how options and compensation works. So we thought we’d share more here about how the economics behind startup options and ownership works…

其中一个重要的问题就是股权所有权。这就是为什么很多创业者在努力建立信任的同时也计划着转移所有权——包括自己的，员工的,共同创始人的以及投资者的。在这个过程中,他们经常作为反面教材用以教育其他人。当然也有一些正面案例来提醒人们股权分配是如何发挥作用的。通过以下几个因素的说明，具体分析股权和所有权背后经济学是如何发挥作用的。

Cap Table

因素一：股权结构表 

The capitalization or “cap” table reflects the ownership of all the stockholders of a company — that includes the founder(s), any employees who hold options, and of course the investors. For most people to understand how much of a company they actually own, all they really need is the fully diluted share count, the broader breakout of ownership among different classes of shareholders, and a couple other details. The fully diluted share count (as opposed to the basic share count) is the total of all existing shares + things that might eventually convert into shares: options, warrants, un-issued options, etc.

资本化或股权结构表反映了一家公司的所有股东的所有权问题,包括创始人、任何持有期权的员工以及投资者。对大多数人而言，需要了解公司实际上能给他们多少钱,他们真正需要的是完全稀释股票份额，不同股东所有权以及其他细节等。完全稀释股份数，不是基本股票份额，而是所有现有股票的总和，加上其他可能最终转换成股票因素，如期权、认股权证、联合签署的选择等。

Let’s introduce a hypothetical example that we’ll use throughout this post. Here’s a new company that has no outside investors, and existing stock allocated as follows:

举一个假设性的例子,通过该例子在全文进行说明。这是一个新创办的公司,没有外部投资者,其现有的股票分配如下:

If someone were offered 100 options, those shares would come out of the 1,000-share option pool, and so they’d own 100/10,000 or 1.0% of the fully diluted capitalization of the company.

如果有人得到了100份的股权,这些股票来自1000份的股票期权池,所以他们会拥有公司100/10,000或1.0%的完全稀释资本。

But that’s just the starting point of ownership, because any analysis of percent ownership in a company only holds true for a point in time. There are lots of things that can increase the fully diluted share count over time — more options issued, acquisitions, subsequent financing terms, and so on — which in turn could decrease the ownership percentage. Of course, people may also benefit from increases in options over time through refresher or performance grants, but changes in the numerator will always mean corresponding changes in the denominator.

但对于所有权而言，这只是开始。,因为任何对于公司的所有权百分比的分析只适用于一个时间点。有很多的东西随着时间的推移可以增加完全稀释股票总量，如发行更多的股票,收购,后续融资条件等等,这些因素反过来也减少所有权的比例。当然,随着时间的推移人们也可以通过进修或绩效奖金受益于发行股票的增加,但就像一个分数一样，分子的变化总是意味着相应的分母的变化。

Financing History

因素二：融资历史

For each financing round (of convertible preferred stock), there’s an original issue price and a conversion price:

对于每轮融资，也就是可转换优先股的融资,都有一个原始发行价格和转换价格:

The original issue price is just what it says: the price per share that the investor paid for its stock. This price tells us what various financial investors believe the value of the company was at various points in time.

The conversion price is the price per share at which the preferred stock will convert into common stock. Remember, “preferred” stock is usually held by investors and has certain corporate governance rights and liquidation preferences attached to it that the rest of the “common” stock does not have.

最初发行价格是说:投资者为其每股股票支付的价格。这个价格告诉我们不同的金融投资者在不同时间点对公司价值的认可程度。转换价格是指每股优先股转换成普通股的价格。记住,“优先”股通常是由投资者持有的，持有优先股的人有一定的企业治理权和与之相关的清算优先权，而持有普通股票投资者并没有这些权利。

In most cases, the conversion price will equal the original issue price, though we’ll share later below where the two can diverge.

大多数情况下,转换价格将等于原始发行价格,而之后我们会分享可以使其偏离的因素。

The exercise price of employee options — the price per share needed to actually own the shares — is often less than the original issue price paid by the most recent investor, who holds preferred stock. How much of a difference in value depends upon the specific rights and the overall maturity of the company, and an outside valuation firm would perform what’s called a 409a Valuation (named for a specific section in the IRS tax code) to determine the precise amount.

员工期权的行使价格——员工实际拥有的股票的价格,往往是小于最近投资者的原始发行价格的。价值的不同取决于员工特定的权利和公司的整体成熟度,以及外部评估公司将执行的所谓409a估值法，来确定准确的数量。该估值法根据美国国税局税收代码某特定领域命名。

Dilution

因素三：股权稀释

Dilution is a loaded word and tricky concept. On one hand, if a company is raising more money, it’s increasing the fully diluted share count and thus “diluting” or reducing current owners’ (including option-holding employees’) ownership. On the other hand, raising more money helps the company execute on its potential, which could mean that everyone owns slightly less, but of a higher-valued asset. After all, owning 0.09% of a $1 billion company is better than owning 0.1% of a $500 million company.

股权稀释本身概念和意义就很复杂。一方面,如果一家公司筹集更多的钱,换句话说，在增加完全稀释股票总量,那么这种做法就会“稀释”或减少当前持有者(包括持有期权的员工)的所有权。另一方面,筹集更多的资金帮助公司挖掘自身的潜力,这可能意味着每个人都拥有略少,但更值钱的资产。毕竟,拥有10亿美元的公司0.09%的股权比拥有5亿美元的公司的0.1%要好得多。

If the company increases the size of the option pool to grant more options, that too causes some dilution to employees, though hopefully (1) it’s a sign of the company’s being in a positive growth mode, which increases overall value of the shares owned (2) it means that employees might benefit from those additional option grants.

公司扩大期权池，从而获得了更多的选择,这也导致了对员工期权的一些稀释。尽管我们期待：(1)有迹象表明公司处于正增长的模式,从而增加了股份拥有者的整体价值(2)这意味着员工可能会受益于这些额外的期权。

Let’s return to the example we introduced above, only now our company has raised venture capital. In this Series A financing, the company got $10 million from investors at an original issue price of $1,000 per share:

让我们回到前面所举的例子,只是现在我们公司获得了了风险投资。在A轮融资中,该公司从投资者那里获得了1000万美元投资，股票的原始发行价格为每股1000美元:

The fully diluted share count increases by the amount of the new shares issued in the financings; it’s now 20,000 shares fully diluted. This means the employee’s 100 options now equate to an ownership in the company of 100/20,000, or 0.5% — no longer the 1% she owned when she first joined. But… the value of that ownership has increased significantly: Because the price of each share is now $1,000, her stake is equal to 100 shares * $1,000/share, or $100,000.

完全稀释股票总量随着新股发行融资的数量增长而增长，现在有20000股完全稀释。这意味着员工100份期权，现在相当于一家公司100/20,000的所有权,即0.5%，不再是其第一次加入时拥有的1%。但是，所有权的价值显著增加了，因为现在每股的价格是1000美元,等于该员工的股份是100股* 1000美元/股,或者说是十万美元。

While not all dilution is equal, there are cases where dilution is dilution — and it involves the anti-dilution protectionsthat many investors may have. The basic idea here is that if the company were to raise money in a future round at a price less than the current round in which that investor is participating, the investor may be protected against the lower future price by being issued more shares. (The amount of additional shares varies depending on a formula.)

当然，不是所有的稀释都相同,有些情况下稀释就是稀释了,这涉及到反稀释条款，该条款用以保护投资者。如果该公司在未来一轮筹集资金的价格，低于当前一轮的参与投资者,那么投资者可能免受未来发行更多股票的较低价格的冲击。(额外股票的数量变化依据公式而定)。

Most anti-dilution protections — often called a weighted average adjustment — are less dilutive to employees because they’re more modest in their protection of investors. But there’s one protection that does impact the other shareholders: the full ratchet. This is where the price that an investor paid in the earlier round is adjusted 100% to equal the new (and lower) price being paid in the current round. So if the investor bought 10 million shares in the earlier round at a price of $2 per share and the price of the current round is $1 per share, they’re now going to get double the number of shares to make up for that, equaling a total of 20 million shares. It also means the fully diluted share count goes up by an additional 10 million shares; all non-protected shareholders (including employees) are now truly diluted.

大多数反稀释条款，通常被称为加权平均调整，对员工的稀释冲击较小,因为他们以更温和的方式保护投资者。但是有一个条款确实影响了其他股东:棘轮条款。该条款中前面一轮投资者支付的价格调整到100%，等于(或者低于)当前一轮投资者正在投资的价格。因此如果前面一轮投资者以每股2美元的价格买了1000万股，而新一轮的价格是每股1美元的话,那么他们现在股票的数量增加了一倍，也就是2千万股，用以弥补每股股票的降价。这也意味着通过一个额外1千万股股票总量的上升，完全稀释股票数量增加了;所有不受保护的股东股权(包括员工)现在是真正的被稀释了。

By the way, this isn’t just theoretical: We saw the effects of such a full ratchet in the Square IPO, where the Series E investors were issued additional shares because the IPO price was half the price at which those investors had originally purchased their shares.

顺便说一句,这并不只是理论:我们在IPO现场看到这样一个完整的棘轮条款的影响,在那里E轮投资者们被迫发行更多的股票,因为其IPO价格只是这些投资者们最初购买其股票价格的一半。

Ideally, anti-dilution protections wouldn’t come into play at all: That is, each subsequent round of financing is at a higher valuation than the prior ones because the company does well enough over time, or there aren’t dramatic changes to market conditions. But, if they do come into play, there’s a “double whammy” of dilution — from both the anti-dilution protection (having to sell more shares, thus increasing the denominator of fully diluted share count) as well as the lower valuation.

理想情况下,反稀释条款保护不会发挥作用:即每个随后的新一轮融资比之前估值要高,因为随着时间的推移，该公司做得会足够好,或市场状况没有显著变化。但是,如果该条款确实发挥作用了,稀释就会有反稀释条款(必须出售更多的股票,从而增加完全稀释股票总量的分母值)，以及更低的估值带来的“双重打击”。

Liquidation Preferences

因素四：优先清算权

Some investors may also have liquidation preferences that attach to their shares. Simply put, a liquidation preference says that an investor gets its invested dollars back first — before other stockholders (including most employees with options) — in the case of a liquidity event such as the sale of the company.

一些投资者可能拥有优先清算权。简单地说,优先清算权是指，投资者在其他股东包括大多数员工期权之前，首先享有拿回其投资金额的权利，以防流动性事件如公司被出售的发生。

To illustrate how such a preference works, let’s go back to our example, only now assume the company was sold for $100 million. Our Series A investor — who invested $10 million in the company and owns 50% of the business — could choose to get back its $10 million in the sale (liquidation preference), or take 50% of the value of the business (50% * $100 million = $50 million). Obviously, the investor will take the $50 million. That would leave $50 million in equity value to then be shared by the common and option holders:

为了说明优先清算权是如何发挥作用的,让我们拿前一个例子举例,现在假设该公司以1亿美元的价格出售。公司A轮投资者给公司投资了1千万美元,拥有公司50%的业务权,可以选择在公司售卖的时候取回其1千万美元，或拿走50%的商业价值，也就是50% * 1亿= 5千万美元。显然,投资者将会拿走5千万美元。这将导致其与共同期权持有人共享价值5千万美元的股本：

Given the high sale price for the company in this example, the liquidation preference never came into play. It would, however, come into play under the following scenarios:

鉴于本例中，该公司出售价格高昂,因此优先清算权还没有派上用场。然而,它将在以下场景中发挥作用:

Scenario 1. If the sale price of a company is not sufficient to “clear” the liquidation preference, so the investor chooses to take its liquidation preference instead of its percentage ownership in the business.

场景1。如果一家公司的销售价格还不足以“明确”优先清算权,那么投资者就会选择运用其优先清算权,而不是其在公司业务中的所有权比例。

Let’s now assume a $15 million sale price (instead of the $100 million) in our example. As the table below illustrates, our Series A investor will elect to take the $10 million liquidation preference because its economic ownership (50% * $15 million = $7.5 million) is less than what it would get under the liquidation preference. That leaves $5 million (instead of the $50 million) for the common and option holders to share.

现在假设一个1千5百万美元的销售价格(而不是1亿美元)。如下表所示,A轮投资者将选择拿回1千万美元的优先清算权,因为其经济所有权是50% * 1500万= 750万美元，小于它在优先清算权所得。剩下的500万美元(而不是5000万美元)是由普通股权和期权持有者分享。

Scenario 2. When a company goes through several rounds of financing, each round includes a liquidation preference. At a minimum the liquidation preference equals the total capital raised over the company’s lifetime.

场景2。当一家公司经过几轮融资后,每一轮投资人都拥有优先清算权，那么至少优先清算权等于公司的整个生命周期筹集到的总资本。

So, if the company raises $100 million in preferred stock and then sells for $100 million, there’s nothing left for anyone else.

所以,如果公司增加了1亿美元的优先股,售价为1亿美元,那么就没有什么留给别人的了。

Scenario 3. There are various flavors of liquidation preference that can come into play depending on the structure of the terms. So far, we’ve been illustrating a 1x non-participating preference — the investor has to make a choice to take only the greater of 1x their invested dollars or the amount they would otherwise get based on their percentage ownership of the company.

场景3。有各种各样的优先清算权可以发挥作用，而这取决于事件的结构特点。到目前为止,我们已经说明了1倍的不参与分配优先清算权的情况，即投资者必须做出选择,只拿比其初始投资金额一倍还要多的钱或基于他们的股票数量比例的公司的所有权。

But some investors do more than 1x — for instance, a 2x multiple would mean that the investor now gets 2x of their invested dollars off the top. The non-participating can also become “participating”, which means that in addition to the return of invested dollars (or multiple thereof if higher than 1x), the investor also gets to earn whatever return their percentage ownership in the company implies. The impact of this on other stockholders can be significant.

但一些投资者得到的远多于1倍，例如,2倍则意味着进行投资的投资者现在获得了其初始投资美元的金额的2倍。不参与分配者也可以成为“参与者”,这意味着除了拿回当初投资的回报外,投资者也会获得任何可以回报他们公司所有权比例。这对其他股东的影响可能是巨大的。

To isolate the effects of these terms, let’s first look at what happens when our Series A investor gets a 2x liquidation preference. In the $100 million sale scenario, that investor will still take its 50% since $50 million is greater than the $20 million (2 x $10 million liquidation preference) it’s otherwise entitled to. The common and option holders are no worse off than they were when our investor had only a 1x liquidation preference:

为了不受这些条款的影响,首先让我们看看当首轮投资者获得2 倍的优先清算权时会发生什么。在以价值1亿美元的情况下出售公司时,投资者将仍然会拿到其50% 的所有权，因为毕竟5千万大于2千万美元(这里是2倍 1千万美元的优先清算权)。而当投资者只有1 倍的优先清算权时，普通股权和期权持有人的情况不会比他们更糟:

But, if the sale price were the much lower $15 million, the investor is going to capture 100% of the proceeds. Its 2x liquidation preference still equals $20 million, but there’s only $15 million to be had, and all of that goes to the investor. There’s nothing left for common and option holders:

但是,如果出售价格比1千5百万美元低得多的话,投资者将会获取全部收益。因为其2倍优先清算权仍等于2千万美元,但目前只有1千5百万美元,而这所有都会归于投资者。普通股权的和期权持有人什么都没有了:

Finally, let’s take a look at what happens when we have participating preferred, colloquially referred to as “double dipping.”

最后,让我们看看当我们参与优先清算权时会发生什么,通俗的称为“双重收费”。

In our $100 million sale scenario, the Series A investor not only gets its $10 million liquidation preference, but also gets to take its share based on its percentage ownership of the company. Thus, the investor gets a total of $10 million (its liquidation preference) plus 50% of the remaining $90 million of value, or $55 million in total. Common and option holders get to share in the remaining $45 million of value:

在我们上述所例举的1亿美元出售场景中,首轮投资者不仅获得了其1千万美元的优先清算权,而且也会根据其股份比例获得相应的公司所有权份额。因此,投资者获得总计1千万美元，加上剩余价值9千万美元的50%,总共5千5百万美元。普通股票和期权持有者获得剩余的4千5百万美元的价值:

In the $15 million scenario, the common and option holders get even less. Because the Series A investor gets its $10 million in preference plus 50% of the remaining $5 million in proceeds, for a total of $12.5 million, only $2.5 million is left for the rest of the shareholders:

在1千5百万美元的出售场景中,普通股票的和期权持有人得到的更少。因为首轮投资者获得1千万美元的优先清算权加上剩余的5百万美元收入的50%，共计1千250万美元,只有250万美元留给其他的股东:

 IPOs

因素五：IPO自动转换问题

There are a bunch of non-economic factors — legal, tax, and corporate governance-related issues — that we aren’t addressing here: which stockholders are required to approve certain corporate actions like selling the company; raising more capital; and so on. They’re important considerations, but we’re focusing here only on economic factors in options and ownership.

有一些非经济因素，如法律、税收、和公司治理相关问题,在这里我们就不特别说明了。像出售公司,筹集更多资本等股东批准公司行为都与这些因素相关。尽管重要，但这里只关注经济因素在股权和所有权中的影响。

However, there is one factor still worth paying attention to because it’s really an economic issue cloaked as a governance issue — the IPO auto convert. This is the language that determines who gets to approve an IPO. In most cases, the preferred stockholders, voting as a single class of stock, get to approve an IPO: Add up all the preferred stockholders together and the majority wins. This is a good check on the company as it ensures one person/one vote, though each preferred stockholder has a say proportional to their economic ownership of the company.

然而,有一个因素仍然值得关注,因为这是一个经济问题下隐藏的治理问题，即IPO自动转换问题，即谁能够决定IPO。在大多数情况下,是优先股股东持有者,他们会拥有单个类型的股票获得IPO:把所有优先股股东加在一起,多数的获胜。这能保证公司一人一投票，尽管每个优先股股东持有公司经济所有权的优先权。

Sometimes, however, different investors can exercise control disproportionate to their actual economic ownership. This typically comes into play when a later-stage investor is concerned that the company might go public too soon for them to earn the type of financial return they need having entered late. In such cases, that investor may require that the company get its approval specifically for an IPO, or if the price of the IPO is less than some desired return multiple (like 2-3x) on its investment.

然而,有时不同的投资者可以行使超出其实际经济所有权的权利。当后期投资者担心该公司可能会因为过早上市而不能获得他们在后期进场的经济回报时，这种权利就发挥作用了。在这种情况下,投资者可能要求公司为IPO得到专门的批准,或如果IPO的价格小于其投资的预想回报。

And that’s how a seemingly governance-only question quickly turns into an economic one: If an investor’s approval is required for an IPO, and that investor is not happy with its return on the IPO, this control can become a backdoor way for the investor to agitate for greater economic returns. How would they do this? By asking for more shares (or lowering the conversion price at which its existing preferred shares convert into common). This increases the denominator in the fully diluted share count.

To be clear, none of this is to suggest nefarious behavior on the part of later-stage investors. After all, they’re providing needed growth capital and other strategic value to the business, and are looking to earn a return on capital commensurate with the risk they’re taking. But it’s yet another factor to be aware of among all the other ones we’re outlining here.

这样一个看似治理的问题迅速变成一个经济问题:如果一个投资者的批准对IPO是必需的,而他对自己IPO的回报又是不满意,这种控制可以成为投资者的秘密武器用以获取更大的经济效益。他们会怎么做呢?通过要求更多的股份，或降低其优先股转换成普通股的现有的转换价格。这增加了计算完全稀释股票的总量数时的分母大小。很显然,这种行为并不建议后期投资者实行。毕竟,他们是提供所需的资本增长和其他业务的战略价值,并希望获得他们承担风险相适应的资本回报率。但这是我们需要注意的一个问题。

ISOs vs non-quals (and exercise periods)

因素六：股权激励模式VS无附加条件认股权

Besides the financing and governance factors that could impact option value, there are also specific types of options that could affect the economic outcomes.

除了融资和治理等因素会影响期权价值以外,股权的特定类型也有可能影响经济结果。

In general, the most favorable type of options are incentive stock options (ISOs). With an ISO, someone doesn’t have to pay tax at the time of exercise on the difference between the exercise price of the option and the fair market value (though there are cases where the alternative minimum tax can come into play). Basically, ISOs mean that startup employees can defer those taxes until they sell the underlying stock and, if they hold it for 1 year from the exercise date (and 2 years from the grant date), can qualify for capital gains tax treatment.

一般来说,最有利的一种选择是股票期权激励模式(ISOs)。尽管有替代性最低税的情况下可以发挥作用，但有了ISO,人们就不需要在对期权和公平市场价值的差异价格之间行使权利时纳税了。基本上,ISOs意味着公司员工可以推迟缴这些税,直到他们卖出股票为止,如果他们从行使日期到持有股票满1年(按授予日期算是2年),可以获得资本利得税待遇资格。

Non-qualified options (NQOs) are less favorable in that someone must pay taxes at the time of exercise, regardless of whether they choose to hold the stock longer term. Since the amount of those taxes is calculated on the exercise date, employees would still owe taxes based on the historic, higher price of the stock — even if the stock price were to later fall in value.

无附加条件认股权(NQOs)相对来说是不太有利的，因为股票运行时必须有人纳税，而无论他们是否选择长期持有股票。因为这些税金的计算是以运用日期开始为准的，这样员工仍会在历史以及更高的股票价格的基础上欠税收，即使股票随后贬值。

So then why don’t all companies only issue ISOs? Well, there are a few constraints on ISOs, including the legal limit of $100,000 of market value that can be issued to any employee within a single year (this means getting NQOs for any amount over $100,000). ISOs also have to be exercised within 90 days of the employee’s leaving the company. With more companies thinking about extending the option exercise period from 90 days to a longer period of time, companies can still issue ISOs — but if they’re not exercised within 90 days of exiting the company, they convert to NQOs regardless of the company’s exercise time, at least under current tax law.

那么为什么不所有的公司只发行ISOs呢?这是因为ISOs是有一些限制的,包括法律限制的市场价值的十万美元可以在一年之内发行给任何员工，这意味着获得NQOs的金额超过10万美元。ISOs必须在员工将要离开公司的90天内行使。也有更多的公司想把期权行使期从90天扩展到更长一段时间,这些公司仍然可以发行ISOs,但如果他们在退出公司的90天内不行使,他们将转换成NQOs而不用考虑公司的行使期，至少根据现行税法是这样的。

M&A

因素七：并购

One of the most frequently asked questions about options is what happens to them if a startup is acquired. Below are some possible scenarios, assuming four years to fully vest but the company decides to sell itself to another company at year two:

关于股权，其中一个最常见的问题之一如果公司被收购了，股权会发生哪些变化。以下列举出一些可能的场景，假设公司打算运营四年,但该公司突然在第二年决定出售给另一家公司:

Scenario 1. Unvested options get assumed by the acquirer.

场景1。限制性股权被收购方夺走。

This means that, if someone is given the option to stay with the acquirer and choose to stay on, their options continue to vest on the same schedule (though now as part of the equity of the acquirer). Seems reasonable… Unless of course they decide this wasn’t what they signed up for, don’t want to work for the new employer, and quit — forfeiting those remaining two years of options.

这意味着,如果有人选择留在收购者那里,虽然现在是作为收购方股票的一部分，他们仍获得计划内的股权授予。看起来似乎合理。当然，除非他们决定不这样签署协议，不想为新雇主工作，辞职并且让出那剩余两年的股权。

Scenario 2. Unvested options get cancelled by the acquirer and employees get a new set of options with new terms (assuming they decide to stay with the acquirer).

场景2。限制性股权被收购方取消，员工可以得到一套新的股权和条款，当然是假设他们决定留在收购者公司时。

The theory behind this is that the acquirer wants to re-incent the potential new employees or bring them in line with its overall compensation philosophy. Again, seems reasonable, though of course it’s a different plan than the one originally agreed to.

该情景背后的理论是,收购方想重新激励潜在的新员工，或使他们认同公司的薪酬制度。当然，这似乎是合理的,虽然该计划与最初的承诺不同。

Scenario 3. Unvested options get accelerated — they automatically become vested as if the employee already satisfied her remaining two years of service.

场景3。限制性股权得以加速。如果员工对授予两年的服务感到满意的话，自动转变为非限制性股权。

There are two flavors of acceleration to be aware of here, single-trigger acceleration and double-trigger acceleration:

这里需要注意的有两种类型的加速，单因子加速和双因子加速:

In single trigger, unvested options accelerate based upon the occurrence of a single “trigger” event, in this case, the acquisition of the company. So people would get the benefit of full vesting whether or not they choose to stay with the new employer.

在单因子加速中，限制性股权加速是基于一个“触发”事件的发生的,例如公司收购。因此在这种情况下无论他们是否选择留在新雇主这里，人们会得到充分的利益归属。

In double trigger, the occurrence of the acquisition alone is not sufficient to accelerate vesting. It must be coupled with either the employee not having a job offer at the new company, or having a role that doesn’t quite match the one they had at the old company.

在双因子情况下,收购的发生本身并不足以加速特别保护权。还有其他情况，如员工在新公司没有得到工作,或没有出现与老公司相匹配的角色。

Note, these are just general definitions. There are specific variations on the above triggers: whether everything accelerates or just a portion; whether people accelerate to some milestone, such as their one-year cliffs; and so on — but we won’t go through those here.

注意,这些只是一般的定义。这里也有一些特例，如是否一切都加速或只是一部分加速，人们是否加快步伐达到新的阶段，如职业生涯等，不过这里先将这些因素排除。

Not surprisingly, acquirers don’t like single triggers, so they’re rare. And double triggers give the acquirer a chance to hold on to strong talent. Still, it’s very unusual for most people to have either of the above forms of acceleration. These triggers are typically reserved for senior executives where it’s highly likely in an acquisition scenario that they won’t — or literally can’t (not possible to have two CFOs for a single company for example) be offered jobs at the acquirer — and thus wouldn’t have a chance to vest out their remaining shares.

这不足为奇，因为收购方不喜欢单因子加速，所以他们很少出现。而双因子加速给了收购方留住人才的机会。不过，对大多数人来说上述形式的加速并不常见。这些加速通常由高管决定，而极有可能在一种收购场景下，他们不会或者实际上无法为他们提供工作，因为一家公司不可能有两个首席财务官，这样就不会有机会抛出剩余的股份了。

The simple way to think about all this is that an acquirer typically has an “all-in price” — which includes up-front purchase price, assumption of existing options, new option retention plans for remaining employees, etc. — that it is willing to pay in the deal. But how the money ultimately gets divided across these various buckets can sometimes diverge from what the initial option plan documents dictate as acquisition discussions evolve.

最简单思考方式是，收购人心中通常有一个“总价格”，包括预先购买价格，对现有股权假设，为留下的员工制定的新的股权保留计划等等，这是其愿意在交易中支付的。但钱最终会如何分配有时会与最初为收购讨论规定的期权计划文件有所偏差。

*   *   *

As mentioned earlier, anything related to compensation and ownership boils down to building and navigating trust — whether it’s through education, communication, or transparency. There’s also an important S.E.C. rule that is in play here: Rule 701, the exemption for issuing employee stock options. This rule says that up to about $5 million in annual option issuances, a company must provide the recipient a copy of the options plan; and then once a company goes beyond the $5 million annual limit, it must also provide a summary of the material terms of the plan, risk factors, and two years worth of GAAP financial statements. Which is great.

如上所述，任何有关薪酬和所有权的问题可以归结为：建立和引导信任，无论是通过教育、沟通还是透明化。还有一点十分重要，证券交易委员会规则：701号规则，即免税发放员工股票期权。这条规则表明，每年总共达到约5百万美元的期权发行时，公司必须提供接收者一份期权计划；而一旦一家公司超出了每年5百万美元的限制，它还必须提供一个汇总的材料计划的条款，风险因素以及两年通用会计准则的财务报表。

But times have changed, and the 701 requirements that were put into effect April 1999 have failed to keep pace. Companies are now staying private longer and are therefore raising more capital, often from new entrants to venture investing with more complicated terms. So simply reviewing a company’s last two years of financial statements doesn’t say much about the ultimate potential value of options. Rule 701 should be updated to better reflect the information people need to understand options.

但是时代变了，而在1999年4月生效的701号规则未能与时俱进。公司现在保持私有化的时间会更长，因此会筹集更多资本，这些资本通常来自新进入者与更复杂的风险投资。所以简单地回顾公司近两年的财务报表，无法说明太多关于最终股权的潜在价值。701号规则应该更新，以更好地反映人们需要了解的信息选项。

The good news is that if a company goes public, all of the above different rights that preferred stockholders have go away because everyone’s shares convert into common shares. There may still be different classes of common stock (such as dual classes with different voting rights to protect founder-driven long-term innovation) — but those don’t impact an individual’s economics.

现在好消息是，如果一家公司上市，优先股股东所有上述不同的权利已经消失，因为每个人的股份都将转换成普通股。当然，可能仍有不同种类的普通股，如双重股份，能够保护创始人把控公司长期走向所享有的不同投票权，但这些不影响个体经济。

Startup outcomes are, by definition, unpredictable. Every startup is unique, every situation has unknown variables, and new data will always change the economic outcomes. Working at a startup means getting in early for something that has yet to be proven, which means it could have great risks … and potentially, great rewards.

综上所述，我们可以判定初创公司未来发展不可预测。每家创业公司都是独一无二的，每种状况都存在未知变量，而新的时代将总是会改变经济回报。在创业公司工作意味着要在早期要经历一些尚未证实的东西，这也意味着可能会有很大的风险，当然也有潜在的巨大回报。

---

版权声明：

凡本网内容请注明来源：T媒体（http://www.cniteyes.com）”的所有原创作品，版权均属于易信视界（北京）信息科技有限公司所有，未经本网书面授权，不得转载、摘编或以其它方式使用上述作品。

本网书面授权使用作品的，应在授权范围内使用，并按双方协议注明作品来源。违反上述声明者，易信视界（北京）信息科技有限公司将追究其相关法律责任。