If you don't like the terms of the deal, don't do the deal (he doesn't want to do the deal, see third and next to last paragraphs of the email).
A VC complaining about the terms under the pretense that 'the little guy is treated unfairly' is a bit like royalty complaining about the price of cake.
Nobody forces him to do this deal on these terms. He's just scared to miss out on a big hit, he'd like the ring side seats to be cheaper by keeping all the money in the company or by buying out some of the founder stock.
Too bad, you can't have it both ways.
He may have a point about early employees (a 'special dividend' that excludes certain shareholders is not very elegant) but it is not his to make, and the dividend in this case was to 'common stock' which seems to imply that anybody with vested shares participates in that dividend.
His 'concern' is about the unvested employees, but that's a nonsense argument, as long as your stock is unvested, you don't have any stock.
Options do not participate in dividends until you exercise them, they never do because they are not stock and that's a pretty clear-cut thing.
Pretty low-class to dump this email in the public domain, I think that people will remember this when dealing with this particular investor in the future.
A VC complaining about the terms under the pretense that 'the little guy is treated unfairly' is a bit like royalty complaining about the price of cake.
Nobody forces him to do this deal on these terms. He's just scared to miss out on a big hit, he'd like the ring side seats to be cheaper by keeping all the money in the company or by buying out some of the founder stock.
Too bad, you can't have it both ways.
He may have a point about early employees (a 'special dividend' that excludes certain shareholders is not very elegant) but it is not his to make, and the dividend in this case was to 'common stock' which seems to imply that anybody with vested shares participates in that dividend.
His 'concern' is about the unvested employees, but that's a nonsense argument, as long as your stock is unvested, you don't have any stock.
Options do not participate in dividends until you exercise them, they never do because they are not stock and that's a pretty clear-cut thing.
Pretty low-class to dump this email in the public domain, I think that people will remember this when dealing with this particular investor in the future.