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> Companies can't use equity as compensation (which is a big lure for talent)

What? Where do you get that? Then I better return all the equity I got.

> and it's extremely hard to fire people

I would say that is hyperbolic, unless you find anything but at-will employment "extremely hard". Small companies (<20?) in Germany, can fire people without reason. I do not know any country (Edit: in the EU), where restructuring is not a valid reason to fire someone (with a severance of 0.5-1.1 monthly salaries per year of employment).

(Edit: But then, I cannot claim to know all the labour laws in the EU)



> What? Where do you get that? Then I better return all the equity I got.

Startups normally use options for equity compensation rather than direct shares because of the tax benefits for employees and simplicity for reporting. Options are look at more like regular shares in the EU. Can't was a bad way of phrasing it. More like shouldn't because tax laws make it a crap shoot.

> I would say that is hyperbolic, unless you find anything but at-will employment "extremely hard"...

Anything but at-will is extremely hard with knowledge work, especially for small companies.




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