How important is paper work when co-founder says additional stock options are granted to me?

AAnonymous ·December 16, 2015 ·3 answers

I was given additional stock grant that was almost equal to initial grant that was part of the offer as I took up a lot more responsibilities (tech and otherwise) than initially planned.

The initial numbers are part of the offer letter. I have an e-mail from co-founder with CEO in cc for the additional stocks but CEO himself never seems to have time to acknowledge the same. The co-founder is not part of the board but is listed as related person in sec form d filing.

I have been following up for a year to get some kind of document for the additional numbers but the answer is no paper work has not happened for any stocks and the email can be treated as official. Is that sufficient?

I understand trust is important part of being in a startup but this thing is really starting to make me feel uncomfortable.

3 answers from the community

AAnonymous· Dec 16, 2015

Some startups take a while to actually issue the stocks but you need confirmation from either the CEO or someone official like the company's lawyer. Of course I am not a lawyer so its best to seek legal advice.

AAnonymous· Dec 18, 2015

I have seen people burnt in your situation. It went from all happy to nothing very quickly. In that situation they created a separate company that owned the ip. They were left with shares in a company shell. Be careful.

AAnonymous· Dec 25, 2015

I was travelling and missed the previous response. I am not worried about the situation you described, lets say it is bit too complicated too pull off something like that in our startup.

My concern was the ceo himself is not directly acknowledging the situation. I checked with a friend of mine (who is founder of company which has raised about 100 mil so far) and he says the email (with ceo in cc) should do the trick and they cannot deny it.

As for why ceo is not responding directly, my guess is he does not want to send a mail before getting approval from board about the additional stocks. He is supposed to have done that a year ago. The situation is so tight (revenues not picking up) that he does not want to bring it up now. I can only guess!!

How important is paper work when co-founder says additional stock options are granted to me?

3 answers from the community

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