Half My Stock, One-Year Lock

Met with Rick Schmidt and Dick Mangiarelli this afternoon, and actually walked away with a compromise I can live with — one that I proposed: half my stock, not sellable for a year if I stay with them; theirs if I quit, mine if they fire me. Or mine to sell if it goes above $10.

I guess it works out well for everyone. We’ll see as time goes by.

I’d been preparing a list of everything I wanted to tell them — about the contract, the stock, the company, the fact that they only had one and a half people out of twenty who knew anything about technology. Some of it I said. Some I didn’t need to.

One line I’d been saving: “You may have noticed that threats don’t motivate me.”

Did not need to use it. Didn’t want to either, honestly.

Now I’m at Rock Bottom Brewery in La Jolla, about to go meet Kip up the hill. I should find some more Burning Man folks and try to stop spending my weekends at work.

June 18, 2001. The Cybertel/Telenomics stock dispute had been running for months. Fred had also retained a lawyer, been accused of fraud (bogus, eventually cleared), and worked through multiple billing runs while negotiating. The settlement held until the company went under.