Employees of digital media outlets worry stock options are worthless - Business Insider

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Employees at digital media companies like Vice and BuzzFeed are griping over dashed stock dreams

Fast forward to today, and three of the most heavily funded digital media companies — BuzzFeed, along with Vice Media and Vox Media — are still independent but have laid off staff and had to diversify to get to ongoing profitability as their core digital advertising business has gotten squeezed.

But for more recent hires who are still holding their options with a much higher exercise price, it's unclear if their options will ever amount to much. There were other catches. For a period, at Vice, the price to convert options to shares was in the "five figures" for a period, making them cost-prohibitive for many, the former exec there said. That means they would have to spend a lot of money they didn't necessarily have to buy shares whose value will still be largely in question until the company exits or goes public.

To be sure, these employees made the choice to work at these companies. It's also possible that some employees were uninformed about how to make the most from options and had unrealistic expectations — fed by their companies leaders or not — about their potential winnings. Vox Media was founded in 2011 and raised more than $300 million, including a $200 million investment in 2015 by Comcast. It reportedly turned a small profit in 2018.with the hope of leveraging its media, entertainment, luxury, and beauty advertising and e-commerce business.

 

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That’s the market and risk of startups, ipos. Far worse had capital and income been forfeited on joining based on a promised of gains and future but indenial repeat offender brats had thieved the lot in a rigged market.

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