Fantastic to see
@nickbonyhady at the
@FinancialReview call out the bad behaviour of many Australian startups -- even Canva -- putting in unfair, anti-innovation clauses like Bad Leaver in their employee equity comp plans.
What's sad to see is the terrible response from
@canva and
@airtreevc so far to claims. At least
@sama and
@OpenAI had the good sense to say "sorry" and immediately remove these clauses. We're yet to see the same from the orgs named in this article and the many others across the Australian startup ecosystem who likely have these same bad practices going on.
Canva -- saying you use "very standard industry language" doesn't cut it when you're the biggest startup in Australia. You *set* the industry standard -- do better.
Airtree -- yes your template docs share "a range of options", but it's completely bonkers that you think that a startup being able to arbitrarily revoke equity that a startup employee has worked for, without due process or strong reasoning, is reasonable for any Australian startup to adopt. It's basically asking employees to arbitrarily pay back their salary. Your template docs also put these bad practices at the very top of the menu of Bad Leaver options, making it the implied default. You too are a standard-setter in the startup ecosystem and should aim higher with your template ESOP docs.
The solution here is incredibly simple -- get rid of the nasty, broad Bad Leaver clauses and other unfair, employee unfriendly practices you think you're getting away with now. Or expect employees to vote with their feet and go elsewhere, while in the meanwhile, Australia's startup & innovation ecosystem suffers because of your short-sighted thinking.
To help catalyse change, I'm open-sourcing the narrow Bad Leaver language I suggest using, from my company Harmony Intelligence's own docs (screenshot).
EXCLUSIVE: Documents seen by the Australian Financial Review show how Canva shares give the start-up leverage over former staff in a widely used industry practice.
afr.com/technology/say-somet…