About this episode

Ben Black discusses how tech employees can strategically manage their equity and navigate liquidity options.

Startup employees are encouraged to believe in the mission. But IPO timelines now stretch well past a decade — and many never happen at all. In this episode, Ben Black, co-founder and managing director of Akkadian Ventures, explains how tech workers can think more strategically about the equity they’ve helped create. Drawing on more than 750 secondary transactions, Ben walks through how employees can evaluate a company’s liquidity posture before accepting an offer, exercise options intelligently, understand the real value of their shares, and access secondary buyers — whether through structured programs or more proactive approaches. We also dig into the psychological side of selling: when to take money off the table, how to avoid overestimating future upside, and why “loyalty” shouldn’t mean ignoring your own financial reality. Ben shares real-world examples of employees using secondaries to fund major life events — and even to bootstrap their own companies so they can retain more ownership and control from day one. Founders and VCs get a lot of attention for the risks they take. This episode is about the people who often take just as much risk with far less margin for error. *…

People in this episode

Host: Walter Thompson

Guest: Ben Black

Topics covered

• equity
• liquidity
• secondary market
• startup employees
• financial strategy

Keywords

• IPO
• equity
• liquidity
• secondary transactions
• financial advice
• startup
• employee ownership

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Akkadian Ventures

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