Mailchimp Owes Me Nothing

When the news broke that Intuit is acquiring my employer, Mailchimp, for $12B there was no shortage of hot takes on the fact that only our founders, Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius, have equity. It’s so normal in the startup world for many (or all) early (or not) employees to have equity that Mailchimp’s equity structure feels wrong to some people. How dare Ben and Dan become billionaires when arguably much of the company’s success is owed to the hard work and creative genius of their employees?

I should start by saying the following is solely my viewpoint, I am not representing the company or (to my knowledge) any other employees. This is not an attempt to minimize or invalidate the perspective of any other employee who has struggled, or risked, or endured more than me here. This is only my perspective.

Here’s my (admittedly naive) understanding of “normal” startup equity practices: Often equity is offered in addition to a salary, in exchange for accepting some risk that the startup might burn through its “runway” (cash) and go out of business. It’s also a promise that if you’re willing to accept that risk and grind out 70-hour weeks you might, with luck, get the company to a sufficiently successful state that it can “exit” (by going public or being acquired). If the company exits at a good price, your shares in it might be valuable, and you stand to reap rewards that might compensate, perhaps even wildly, for all that hard work and risk.

When I joined Mailchimp in 2014 there was little risk. The company was very profitable and navigating double digit growth. I accepted a salary that was fair compared to market data available, and then over the course of the first year I discovered multiple benefits and bonus programs that included fully paid health insurance for my family, a 10% “pizza” bonus that was essentially profit sharing, and a 6% company match on 401k contributions. And then in January the company dumped another 19% of my salary into my 401k, a second helping of profit sharing! (Ben has called this our “annual IPO.”) I’ve enjoyed these generous benefits & bonuses for more than seven years. And while there have been and probably will always be occasional exceptions and I can’t speak for all teams or roles, 40-hour weeks at Mailchimp have always been the norm in my time here.

Ben and Dan went without salary in some of the early years, burning the midnight oil, eating ramen noodles, asking their families to accept hardship that my family never had to endure. This was their gamble, not mine.

I don’t want to paint a picture of working at Mailchimp as all sunshine and puppies, and certainly other employees have had different, and potentially less-privileged experiences than I have. Double digit growth creates a persistent state of change (my boss likes to say “at Mailchimp, change is the job”). Change fatigue is real. We are probably in the “awkward teenager” phase of our startup-to-grownup journey, we often aren’t as disciplined as a company as we probably should be, and that can make the constant change feel chaotic. Learning to thrive in ambiguity, repeatedly step outside one’s comfort zone, learn & grow quickly through feedback, collaborate courageously, and the myriad other things that are essential to forward progress in a quickly changing environment is real work. We often joke about how a year at Mailchimp can feel like three months or three years, simultaneously. But the work results in significant personal growth, great relationships with exceptional humans, and I am well-supported and well-compensated for it.

It’s predictable that people would see this exceptional success story and think Ben and Dan are being greedy, they should have let all of us swim in the equity pool. Would they have said this if Mailchimp flamed out before reaching profitability? I know several people (some of them fellow Mailchimp employees) who “own” worthless shares in failed startups. I’ve seen a few employees leave to join startups that went out of business within months. That is the far more likely outcome for startups, they go out of business and leave their employees polishing resumes and looking for employment.

In contrast, I’m becoming an employee of Intuit, a company that consistently lands on best places to work lists, having never had to interview. I will receive some portion of a $300M “transaction bonus” pool that is part of the deal, a gift of Intuit stock to Mailchimp employees when the acquisition closes. And I’ll have the option of buying more Intuit stock at a 15% discount by participating in their employee stock purchase program.

Joining Mailchimp was one of the smartest things I’ve ever done, and I’ve felt extraordinarily lucky (and generously rewarded) ever since. I owe Ben and Dan a huge thank you. They owe me nothing.