equity
Bulletins

DoorDash unlocks the equity handcuffs

It's joining other companies in revising conventional thinking about stock options.

A DoorDash delivery.

DoorDash is dropping its one-year equity cliff.

Photo: DoorDash

DoorDash is announcing Wednesday that it plans to remove the one-year cliff for stock vesting, meaning equity-eligible employees below the VP level (most of its corporate staff) will start receiving equity every quarter instead of having to wait a year.

The change makes DoorDash the latest company to experiment with equity awards as a way to compete for talent. A four-year vesting schedule with a one-year cliff is pretty typical for tech companies as it rewards employees to stay for at least a year with the hopes that they stay to receive the full award over four years.

In May, Coinbase announced it was joining companies like Lyft in shortening grant windows to one-year terms instead of four-year plans. DoorDash plans to stick to four-year grants, but employees will earn 6.25% of their total award each quarter instead of waiting out the first year for 25%.

Biz Carson

Biz Carson ( @bizcarson) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol, covering Silicon Valley with a focus on startups and venture capital. Previously, she reported for Forbes and was co-editor of Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Before that, she worked for Business Insider, Gigaom, and Wired and started her career as a newspaper designer for Gannett.

doordashventure capitalstartupsequityvesting
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