as an ex-CEO who offered stock to employees in lieu of pay because my startup was running low on funds, it was all rejected. i later found out when i left the room, some of the employees actually mocked me and made it seem like i was just trying to scam them. one of them said something like "he's offering us stock in a company that is basically worthless, does he think we are idiots?"
just to be clear, the company was not worthless. we were actually somewhat breakeven at that point, monthly revenue was around $15k and employee salaries were somewhere around $15-16k. the idea at the time was that if they accepted stock compensation instead of cash, the company could theoretically afford to hire more developers, or launch a more ambitious marketing campaign. i did not factor in the fact that these employees weren't invested in the company, and to them, the fact that we weren't making millions in revenue means we are broke. so they value the stock at zero.
just to conclude the story: i ended up selling my company to another large company for a small profit (not headline-making numbers), enough that i can live comfortably and continue pursuing entrepreneurship dreams while not being employed. the employees who would have received stock back when i offered it would have made a profit, although in all honesty it's not Google or Facebook money. just for fun, i did a quick calculation on how much one of the employees who refused the offer would have made in stock - it was roughly about $250,000 worth.
Eh, I can see that going both ways.
As far as fluidity is concerned, stocks in a small, private company may as well be worth $0 since you can't pay rent or buy groceries with them.
Nice gesture on your part though: still didn't deserve mockery. Hopefully it was just their fear talking. :)
well, a few months ago i actually ran into one of the ex-employees, in fact i believe he was one of the main ones who mocked me. he's now working for some small tech company as a web developer. we had a quick 10 minute chat about how life was, but in a moment of pettiness, i took the last minute as an opportunity to kind of mock him back. the conversation was kind of winding down, and i said "hey by the way, no hard feelings about that whole saga back in the day. honestly, i actually understand your position now so it's all good. not going to lie, if all of you had not rejected the offer, i would be a few million dollars short when the acquisition happened!"
i walked away with a smile, and that dude kind of just shrugged and walked away.
