Founder's Grant

Tech stock IPOs have been really hot on the stock market in the last couple of years. Frequently in the news you'll read about some tiny, little known tech company nestled snugly in Silicon Valley that suddenly is bought out by a corporate leviathan. Overnight those employees at the bought out company become very wealthy. Sometimes they became millionaires due to the stock options they were given and terms of the buyout. We're one of the biggest tech companies in the world. Our Initial Public Offering of stock shares was big news. After the details of Bill and Dave's company breakup were ironed out (which took many months) our new tech company stock was available for purchase on the market at $42 a piece. Not bad.

Funny thing was, unless our employees were buying shares on the open market with their own cash, we were effectively locked out from getting any. We weren't offered any stock options or given even the slightest advantage to try and buy our own stock at a reduced price. Luckily I had some shares in our former computer division so when the company split I did receive an equivalent amount of shares in our new tech company stock. That was automatic. But what about all those employees who didn't have any stocks in the PC group? They got nothing.

Weeks passed. An employee uproar grew over the issue of corporate shutting out our own people from obtaining any stock options. E-mails from people in different product divisions around the country circulated. The ones I read were vehemently angry. Then a grassroots employee letter campaign started. Engineers, mid-level managers, production workers on the shop floor, they were all sending e-mails and letters direct to Supergeek or his staff members. That seemed risky to me because those big dogs on the corporate board never handle criticism well. Anyway, much to my surprise Supergeek listened to the complaints. Sort of.

Supergeek responded to this problem by making a company announcement one afternoon. Every employee worldwide was to be given 100 shares of company stock options as a gift. He called it the "Founder's Grant." There were a few catches. One, the stock option price was set at eighty dollars a share. Keep in mind our stock was available on the market for roughly half that cost. Two, the stock options would not mature or be available to sell until ten years from now. The only exception to this was if the company reached an unattainable financial goal of so many billions of dollars in a specified time period. The formula didn't make any sense. Bottom line: the stock options are pretty much worthless. The announcement had it's desired effect though. Everyone who was whimpering and complaining about stock options finally shut the hell up.