Summary: Intern comes up with a job sales board for Fog Greek, grosses $1m. Joel decides not to compensate him, arguing that it is difficult to measure the contribution of each individual.
The whole article is sickening, because Joel tries so hard to contort reason and make it sound like he was being fair.
Well, not quite so--they did decide to offer him stock conditional upon him joining. While I don't agree with not coughing up a cash bonus, he is making a point about their culture, and that is always a dicey thing to fiddle with. And he isn't really in startup mode.
Stock in a company that isn't public and has no plans to IPO is literally worthless. Joel could have given him ONE HUNDRED BILLION shares if he'd wanted to. Well, almost worthless: it's worth exactly as much as one sheet of paper. Or half a sheet, since now you can only write on one side of it!
At least the t-shirt you could wear for yardwork or in the gym...
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th...
Summary: Intern comes up with a job sales board for Fog Greek, grosses $1m. Joel decides not to compensate him, arguing that it is difficult to measure the contribution of each individual.
The whole article is sickening, because Joel tries so hard to contort reason and make it sound like he was being fair.