Global monopoly of technology

(Ps: Some minor changes have been made to the content of this chapter)

[Heavy!BlueSpace's startup company "Bluestar Technology" has just completed a pre-A round of financing of 77 million, with a valuation of 1.1 billion!!!——"Internet Reference News"

[The cold winter is gone?Since the Internet entered the cold winter, for the first time a startup company with a valuation of over 1 billion has appeared!——"Invest Today"

[The new social networking site BlueSpace website received 77 million pre-A round of financing. This round of financing was initiated by Tengxun, and SoftBank Capital, IDG, and venture capital funds followed the investment.——"Financial News"

[The most powerful founder in history was born. The founder of BlueSpace's pre-A round of financing allowed capital to willingly accept harsh conditions that are almost impossible to accept, a nearly legendary financing case!——"Souhuwang"

[BlueSpace website received 77 million financing and valuation of 1.1 billion. Founder Luo Sheng, a student at Fu University, is a rising star in the Internet industry!——"Technology Daily"

After the news that Bluestar Technology completed the pre-A round of financing, the company became popular in the industry, and Luo Sheng was also popular.

The founder is a college student, with a valuation of 1.1 billion, and the first company with a valuation of 1 billion after the Internet bubble. These series of entries have attracted attention from Luo Sheng and Bluestar Technology.

This financing is a critical date for the Internet industry, and more and more people in the industry, especially entrepreneurs, see hope.

The cold winter may really have passed, and the Internet is about to usher in a new stage of vigorous development.

...

With the completion of this pre-A round of financing, the company formally set up a reserve option pool. After receiving this financing, Luo Sheng did not immediately consider expansion. The problem he wants to solve most now is the company's operation and management.

Simply put, people.

If this problem is not resolved, once it enters the fast lane of rapid development, the company will inevitably have a chaotic situation in its operation and management.

Next, the company will be on the right track of development in a real sense, and subsequent employee expansion will be for adults, and the company's current dormitory culture must be removed.

Development has entered a new stage, and it must also enter a new management method.

It’s not enough to just shout slogans. The current start-up teams are basically students and recent graduates. Now the enthusiasm is naturally high, but without a good incentive mechanism, this enthusiasm will not last long, especially with the company After expanding, recruiting adults.

After completing the pre-A round of financing, the company’s option pool reserve has been set up, but how to use it effectively and how to use equity incentives is really a waste of brains.

Obviously, the company urgently needs a professional legal person. Although Luo Sheng also knows a little about legal affairs, this is not his expertise.

To this end, he called his mother for help.

Luo Sheng's mother is engaged in this profession, and she is the top elite in the industry. He originally had an idea at that moment, which was to invite her mother to the company as the chief legal officer CLO, but he gave up decisively without thinking too much. , This is no different from asking a Tathagata Buddha to press himself under Wuzhi Mountain.

In the end, Luo Sheng's mother recommended him a professional legal person who was also her most proud student.

Luo Sheng is overjoyed. His mother's professional abilities are there, and he will definitely not cheat her son. However, Luo Sheng's mother asked for an annual salary of 3 million plus 1% of the company's equity for the people he recommended.

Luo Sheng was also surprised that the mother of the guest agency would actually charge such a high price, but after learning the other party's resume, it was another matter.

The talents his mother recommended for him are high-end talents who are proficient in legal affairs and foreign-related legal affairs, and are also proficient in finance and auditing.For personal reasons, I also rejected the olive branch of the Wall Street Goldman Sachs Group's million-dollar high-paying invitation. You must know that Wall Street is generally very good at attracting Asians. On the one hand, it is a business problem, on the other hand, it is a problem of strength. On the whole, Europeans and Americans play finance better than Asia People are better.

Goldman Sachs, this is the company that countless financial industry job seekers dream of entering. Tens of thousands of people apply for intern positions alone, and the admission percentage rate is single digits.

Being able to be proficient in multiple fields, this treatment is not too much, especially in the financial sector. Luo Sheng will not go deep into the financial field. However, the wave of subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 in the United States still needs to be dealt with. It just needs finance. Elite talents to assist.

Luo Sheng waited for three days in anticipation, and the parties finally came to Shencheng and successfully met.

...

This morning.

Luo Sheng went to the meeting at the agreed place. In a coffee shop, he already knew the name of the person involved, Qin Weimu, a female.

When Luo Sheng learned that the talent his mother recommended to him was a woman of about the same age, he thought about something for a while.

After the meeting, Luo Sheng was quite surprised. Qin Weimu is a high-value urban beauty, with long hair and red lips, intellectual and full of royal sister fan.

At this moment, the two sides sat opposite each other in a private room.

Luo Sheng looked at the beautiful lawyer sitting in front of him with a smile: "Weimu, should be taken from Tao Yuanming's "Reading the Mountain and the Sea · Chapter Ten", Jingwei titled Weimu, will fill the sea. Jingwei fills the sea, Weimu ,Good name!"

Qin Weimu looked at this man who was three years younger than himself and might become his own boss with his chin in his hand, and said, "I'm ready. Can I get an interview now?"

Hearing this, Luo Sheng shook his head and smiled: "Just forget about the interview, you can trust my mother. If you leave the original law firm and run to my startup company, I have no reason not to believe it. Will my mother cheat me if I don’t? You will be the chief legal officer of the company from now on.

Qin Weimu pursed his lips, and after a while he couldn't help but laughed and said, "Actually, I didn't know before this. I didn't expect that Teacher Li would recommend me to work in her son's company. Bluestar Technology is well-known in the Internet industry recently. , I also heard about it."

Luo Sheng smiled without saying a word. After a while, Qin Weimu added with a touch of confidence: "You can consult me ​​for any questions related to legal issues, whether it is domestic, North American or EU countries. Also including Financial audit issues, financial issues."

Luo Sheng stared at the beautiful lawyer sister in front of her in surprise. Her words all showed strong confidence in her profession. Obviously, she also trusted Luo Sheng's mother very much.

After a while, Luo Sheng nodded, and after thinking about it, he said: "The company has completed a new round of financing and has reserved an option pool. The company has also entered a new round of development from the initial stage. It can be said that you are blue. Star Technology’s first employee with work experience, apart from you, the other twenty or so employees are either fresh graduates or current students. The previous flat and loose management, but the new stage is obviously not suitable for this Management tools."

Qin Weimu nodded gently, listening carefully to what he said.

Luo Sheng continued: “As more and more adult employees with work experience are recruited in the future, how to keep the whole team up and down is very important. This is my most concerned and troublesome issue recently. I think Equity incentives are the best way. I also decided to engage in equity incentives in the company, but the question is, how do I implement equity incentives? Is it appropriate to give to employees or to sell to employees?"

After talking about these issues, Luo Sheng looked at the lawyer sister in front of her, and asked her to advise and analyze, so that she could make decisions by herself.

"Sell!"

Qin Weimu said without hesitation.

Luo Sheng couldn’t help but stared at her for a while, and Qin Weimu continued: “You have to implement equity incentives, and you must not give it to employees, otherwise, even if your company’s management is excellent and you are excellent, Bluestar Technology The probability of failure is already 50% ahead of schedule, I can say so with a pack of votes."

"Go on, listen carefully." Luo Sheng looked at her and waited.

Qin Weimu quickly organized what he wanted to say in his mind, and after a while he said in an orderly manner:

"Equity incentives must be sold, because if you give it away for nothing, he will not cherish it. The purpose of equity incentives is to allow employees to share the benefits and risks with the company like shareholders. You give him the equity and the company If the company develops well, he shares the benefits. If the company develops poorly, he will not share risks with you."

“It’s easy to make an equity incentive plan and give it away. You can give it whatever you want. But it’s difficult to sell equity to employees and analyze it from the perspective of human nature and psychology. No matter what price you sell to employees, He will feel high. Therefore, if you want to do equity incentives, you must meet six core elements, none of which are indispensable, namely: equity pricing, setting upper limits, waiting period, instant incentives, a sense of security and deep lock-in."

Luo Sheng couldn't help being excited. He didn't think so clearly when he decided to do equity incentives. He was a professional. Luo Sheng immediately said, "Please elaborate on these six core elements."

Qin Weimu took a sip of coffee, put it down, and glanced at Luo Sheng. After a while, he said: "The first priority for equity incentives is pricing. Take the case I once took as an example. There was a business owner. Equity incentives must also be implemented. He sold 10% of the company’s shares to employees at a 50% discount at a normal valuation, but no one bought it. I’m not surprised at all, because employees will first wonder if there is a problem with the company. The boss wants to hold them fast?"

"The boss also doubted his life in the end, why didn't even an employee buy it? Is there really something wrong with the company? He was also a little self-doubt. Later, he went to my law firm and he consulted and entrusted me with this case. I took it too."

Luo Sheng interjected curiously: "How did you do it?"

Qin Weimu Yan Zhan smiled and said bluntly: "When I took this case, I first looked at his business operations and financial status, and the next thing I did was to help him find an investment institution to invest 10 million yuan, accounting for 10 million yuan. % Of the equity is valued at 100 million. The purpose of this is to price the company’s equity. At this time, 6 million, employees are rushing to buy it."

"At the same time, I also gave a lecture to the employees of the company, explaining the equity incentives, what are the advantages, what are the disadvantages, and what are the benefits."

Luo Sheng said: "That said, my company has already completed the pricing, and the pre-A round of financing has just been completed."

Qin Weimu's first lightened and continued: "The second element is to set the upper limit. Equity incentives cannot allow employees to buy as much as they want. For example, the vice president level can buy up to 5%, the director level up to 3%, and the manager level. Buy up to 1%, etc., and make a weight coefficient based on the employee’s length of service, position, performance, contribution, etc., and specify the maximum selling amount."

"The third element is the waiting period. The so-called waiting period is also a test period for employees. You must not give a certain employee a 3% or 5% equity right away. You must give him a waiting period and a test period. The more you wait and expect, you can also pass this stage to test and evaluate what value and contribution he has made to the company."

"Many times you will find that waiting and waiting, the employee ran away, because he felt that the waiting period set by the boss was a pie for him. Therefore, the intermediate stage needs to let him taste the real sweetness. , This is the fourth element."

"The fourth element is to set up an instant incentive. What to do? Simple, use dividend rights to motivate. When setting options for employees, they must be combined with dividend rights. Although shares are still options, at least they can get dividends. I don’t think you are drawing a pie."

Qin Weimu paused for a while at this point, took a sip of coffee and continued:

"The fifth element is a sense of security. Many companies fail in equity incentives because of their boss' verbal promises, especially when they drink some wine at the dinner table. How could employees believe your promise at the dinner table? Not only will you not work hard because of your verbal promises, but you will also doubt the authenticity of your performance."

"Therefore, when companies provide employees with equity incentives, they must provide them with a sense of security, that is, legal protection. That is, they must sign complete equity incentive legal documents, which must be complete. At least one equity incentive plan must also have an equity incentive. The agreement is signed together. The so-called equity incentive agreements of many companies are only two pages. Can this give employees a sense of security? Obviously not. It is like buying a house. The developer gives you a two-page real estate contract. Do you dare to buy it?"

Luo Sheng shook his head, definitely wouldn't buy it, and immediately asked subconsciously: "Then how to operate?"

Qin Weimu replied: "What should I do if an employee is promoted? What if he is demoted? What if he is divorced? What if a work-related accident? What if I leave? Wait for a series of employees to enter, quit, and promote. All situations such as demotion and demotion should be considered and written into the agreement. Do everything possible. If there are only two poor pages, what should be done in the end? Is the final interpretation right not owned by the company? Employees are still a vulnerable group, no A sense of security."

"Therefore, there must be complete legal documents in the equity incentive, and the equity incentive agreement must be signed. This is when I formally enter the job, I can draw up a complete contract document for you to review."

"The last element is deep lock-in. That is, to lock up employees step by step, requiring employees to pay money, time, and affection in the company. Don't underestimate the money paid by employees. For example, equity incentives make employees spend hundreds of thousands of dollars. , Hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands to buy shares of Bluestar Technology, after spending the money, his mentality will change."

In the end, Qin Weimu said concisely: "Because whoever has the money, who cares."

Hearing Luo Sheng looking at her in surprise here, he nodded silently in his heart. Being able to say these words shows that Qin Weimu has no subjective prejudice, because she joined Bluestar Technology to get 1% equity distribution directly, but said If you insist, you cannot directly give shares, but insist on selling.

It can be seen from this that Qin Weimu's professional ethics is worthy of affirmation. He will not say anything against his will just because he is a vested interest. Public is public and private is private.

Luo Sheng suddenly felt that the talent recommended by his mother was indeed reliable.

...