Negotiating with Ismael
Ismael and I went to Gordon Biersch today to negotiate my compensation package. We sat down around a table with tall stools, in the darker, quieter part in the back, and ordered some beer. The waiter checked my id. Ismael opened the discussion by asking me to tell him what I wanted – I answered I didn’t really know, and that I had just informed myself of all the collateral you usually get, like 401(k), to better understand the offering.
He then went on saying that I didn’t have much experience, and that Antoine had already his diploma, and so on. My expectations lowered with every sentence he said. I replied that the argument that I did not have a diploma doesn’t hold, since I was losing one year of diploma-pay by delaying graduation. ‘Fair enough’ he said.
And then he offered $67,000 a year. Now I was secretly hoping for $60,000, thinking that was a very good deal. This was even better. I had to put my hand over my mouth to avoid giggling. I had received the advice that silence is an excellent negotiation tool. So I remained silent. ‘Hummm’ I said. Then I looked in the air and pretended to be thinking hard. ‘Hummm’. Pause. 30 seconds go by that felt like an eternity. ‘Hummm’. Ismael got nervous and asked what I thought. I answered ‘Well…’ then another 15 second pause. He then mentioned a share of stock-options, that he could not give the details for, but that I would have to trust him would be honest. ‘Interesting…’ He went on to talk about stocks, ownership of Intalio, and other topics, after which I was assured that he would stay at Intalio until it got uninteresting (like by being bought by a boring company).
‘Ok…’ I said as that conversation was over. Silence. He then said that it was difficult for him to raise the salary, but that he could throw in a $25,000 conditional bonus, annualized to December 2008. A fourth would be earned everytime a step was attained. 1. 100,000 registered users 2. 1,000 paying customers (defined >$200) 3. First payment for Amazon’s paid AMIs (the rPath / EC2 / remote Intalio server I am working on) 4. Launching a cool new project.
I was thrilled! We shook hands to make it a deal, and had you seen me, there was a grin on my face that would not wear down. It was hard to stay cool.