vania-janet/multiturn-rag-retrieval-data huggingface dataset:
Instead, just keep a ledger of how much you paid each of the founders, and if someone goes without salary, give them an IOU. Later, when you have money, you'll pay them back in cash. In a few years when the money comes rolling in, or even after the first VC investment, you can pay back each founder so that each founder has taken exactly the same amount of salary from the company. Shouldn't I get more equity because it was my idea? No. Ideas are pretty much worthless. It is not worth the arguments it would cause to pay someone in equity for an idea. If one of you had the idea but you both quit your jobs and started working at the same time, you should both get the same amount of equity. Working on the company is what causes value, not thinking up some crazy invention in the shower. What if one of the founders doesn't work full time on the company? Then they're not a founder. In my book nobody who is not working full time counts as a founder. Anyone who holds on to their day job gets a salary or IOUs, but not equity. If they hang onto that day job until the VC puts in funding and then comes to work for the company full time, they didn't take nearly as much risk and they deserve to receive equity along with the first layer of employees. What if someone contributes equipment or other valuable goods (patents, domain names, etc) to the company? Great. Pay for that in cash or IOUs, not shares. Figure out the right price for that computer they brought with them, or their clever word-processing patent, and give them an IOU to be paid off when you're doing well. Trying to buy things with equity at this early stage just creates inequality, arguments, and unfairness. How much should the investors own vs. the founders and employees? That depends on market conditions. Realistically, if the investors end up owning more than 50%, the founders are going to feel like sharecroppers and lose motivation, so good investors don't get greedy that way. If the company can bootstrap without investors, the founders and employees might end up owning 100% of the company.
This is probably too much trouble for the employer. If they violate some rules, they can get fined by the government and lose a lot more money. Not to mention that they'd have to waste a lot of effort researching the question. If you are in a position to negotiate, ask for a higher raise instead.
Thats exactly what I am looking to do - a career change. My problem is I dont have any relevant experience in finance (and mot much knowledge either). So I planned to do the CFA thinking that I will get some relevant knowledge in order to apply for jobs in the field. As things stand now I dont if I will fare well in an interview if I get a call.   You got a job explaining your investments, thats impressive. I wonder if you could tell me, what other things will the interviewers grind you on if an IT guy looks to get into finance without any relevant experience?
Start ups are a con if you're the employee that does all the work and finds that the company has no ground to stand on.  In that case, you're closer to an idiot for taking the job in the first place than anything else.  This isn't a stab at start ups being a horrible investment:  This is a stab at the people that take up a job that ends up making them the backbone of all of it and they just keep on trucking to make it happen without consideration to their value.
Again I don't know how well this applies to all finance professions but in my field a lot of what we do is effectively communicate finance and valuation information to clients. Essentially we are contracted to perform analysis, then we write a report conveying the meaning of that analysis to the client.  A good amount of the work we do often has legal implications as well so our writing has to stand up to litigation and cross examination.  Perhaps being a good writer won't be crucial for your position but in my opinion writing is mostly about how to effectively communicate an idea. In that context writing is very useful in teaching you how to get your message across.  I hope that makes sense.
If you or she can't answer this or don't have access to someone who can, then I fear for the business.  That said, it really depends on where you are and how your business is incirporared, but I can't think of any law prohibiting it where I am. I was an employee of my dad's business as soon as I was legal.
"They are basically asking for the name of the legal entity that they should write on the check. You, as a person, are a legal entity, and so you can have them pay you directly, by name. This is in effect a ""sole proprietorship"" arrangement and it is the situation of most independent contractors; you're working for yourself, and you get all the money, but you also have all the responsibility. You can also set up a legal alias, or a ""Doing Business As"" (DBA) name. The only thing that changes versus using your own name is... well... that you aren't using your own name, to be honest. You pay some trivial fee for the paperwork to the county clerk or other office of record, and you're now not only John Doe, you're ""Zolani Enterprises"", and your business checks can be written out to that name and the bank (who will want a copy of the DBA paperwork to file when you set the name up as a payable entity on the account) will cash them for you. An LLC, since it was mentioned, is a ""Limited Liability Company"". It is a legal entity, incorporeal, that is your ""avatar"" in the business world. It, not you, is the entity that primarily faces anyone else in that world. You become, for legal purposes, an agent of that company, authorized to make decisions on its behalf. You can do all the same things, make all the same money, but if things go pear-shaped, the company is the one liable, not you. Sounds great, right? Well, there's a downside, and that's taxes and the increased complexity thereof. Depending on the exact structure of the company, the IRS will treat the LLC either as a corporation, a partnership, or as a ""disregarded entity"". Most one-man LLCs are typically ""disregarded"", meaning that for tax purposes, all the money the company makes is treated as if it were made by you as a sole proprietor, as in the above cases (and with the associated increased FICA and lack of tax deductions that an ""employee"" would get).
&gt; I have a hard time swallowing this opinion from somebody who actually thinks startups can or should get into a contract with anybody stipulating continuing employment. Nobody does that.  Are you serious? Lots of people do it. In fact, no serious professional freelancer that I know would even consider going into a back-end deal with a startup without some kind of contract in place.  Look - going into business with a start-up is not something people do every day. In fact, if you choose it as a career path, you're going to have a pretty shitty time and eat a lot of ramen.  There's lots of startups around at every time of the year. I could take on half a dozen spec projects tomorrow if I wanted to.  But this isn't how it works. You should ONLY ever get involved with a low-paid startup if you know the people involved and you believe in the project. Because there's every chance you might end up with nothing.  But one situation you CAN avoid with a little planning is the investors pulling as soon as the first few bucks roll in and leaving everyone high and dry. Getting a decent ass-covering contract in place is key to working with startups.  &gt; Yes, you have to check your wallet and your fingers too whenever you deal with VCs but if you don't think that's the case with almost every deal you make, you are delusional.  Who even mentioned dealing with VCs? The OP and the discussion is about dealing with a start-up company. I've never seen VC investors take anything more than a cursory interest into who the founders are employing.
&gt;Fortunately I've never had to ask these questions (facebook is a beautiful thing).  From a entrepreneur to a employer, you're asking for a lawsuit (I'd say a couple of lawsuits) and I highly recommend that you stop this practice before you get in hot water. Here's why:   First:  * Facebook terms of use makes it a violation for anyone to ask users for their facebook password. So Facebook can sue employers for requesting said password due to the employer violating the terms. All the user would have to do is contact Facebook's legal department that you asked for their password.   Second:  * There is often information provided in Facebook profiles that you can not ask a perspective employee during the hiring process mandated by Federal law. Facebook records locations of where the user has logged into their account. So all the job applicant would have to do is produce that evidence which is readily accessible via your Facebook profile for free.    That information consist of the following:  * Race * Sex * Orientation * Pregnancy * Religion * National origin * Disability (physical or mental, including HIV status) * Age (for workers over 40) * Military service or affiliation * Anticipated deployment with the Reserves or National Guard * Bankruptcy or bad debts * Genetic information * Citizenship status (for citizens, permanent residents, temporary residents, refugees, and asylees)  If someone is not hired after an employer has accessed this information via use of the job applicant's Facebook account, the employer is opening themselves up to an accusation/lawsuit that something in the Facebook profile was used as the basis of a decision not to hire. As an employer: How do you prove to the court/judge that you DIDN'T use the applicant's information on Facebook for making your hiring choice? Do you as an employer really want to be put into this position? You'd have to be crazy or not mind lawsuits if you say yes.    So it's just better for both the employer and the applicant for the employer to not ask for the password.    TL;DR - As a employer, don't ask for a Facebook user's password unless you like lawsuits.
Thanks for helping me gauge my expectations for this project. The more advanced stuff may require an exception then. I guess they are looking to knock off the casual Excel users while making exceptions for the more advanced Corporate Finance/Financial Reporting team. Thanks for your input though, can I ask you what your organization does and what areas you did have success in transitioning to GSuite?
I think you're looking at the picture in an odd way. When each of you made your initial investments and determined what portions you owned, that gave the company capital that they could use to finance its operations. In return, you are entitled to the future profits of the company (in proportion to your ownership). Any future investment by either of you is at your own discretion. Your company now faces a situation where it would like to pursue a potentially lucrative opportunity, but needs more capital than it has to do so. So, you need to raise more capital. That capital can come from one or both of you (or from an outsider). Since that investment would be discretionary, what the investor gets is a negotiation: the company negotiates with the investor how much equity (in the form of new shares) to award in exchange for the new investment (or whatever other compensation you decide on, if not equity).
I don't like some of the engineering work that I do but yes I do like having a job. I don't think that's a crime - I enjoy the financial and project managing side of my job more than modeling and technical analysis...  I'm sorry that I want more information that sounds cool to me and may be something I want to make a career switch towards? Is there something wrong with this reasoning? I can see if it looks a bit naive since I am unsure of some parts of my thinking as well so please let me know if what I fleshed out seems like a ridiculous or dumb decision!
"It could be simple as far as who gets what accounts after the initial assignments go. So, for this example let's look at:  Employee A - 5 accounts worth 15 million *FLAGGED FOR FULL*  Employee B - 1 account worth 75 million   Employee C - 3 accounts worth 50 million  Employees have the ability to decide if they do not want anymore accounts, or if they can take on more. That's pretty much what happens now. ""Hey can you handle one more account?"" **""Actually, my accounts are pretty chaotic right now and look that way for the foreseeable future. Can I pass on this one?""**   So, when a new account comes available if I've flagged myself as full I simply don't participate in what would be a random handing out of the Alpha Account. The only problem I could see is if employees are stretching themselves out a bit too much for extra money, and not necessarily because they can rightfully handle the workload. Now they're just not flagging themselves because they want more money, but that sounds like a problem that can be easily handled by looking at their performance. Can you handle the load? No. Then I'm flagging you. Again, this is what happens now. If some people volunteered for more Alpha Accounts they'd be told no. There have been times now when a support has too many accounts and they pull it away and give to someone else.  As far as losing money based on accounts, there could simply be a baseline salary. From baseline X apply the modifiers for the account values, quantities, and years worked there, but if you were to lose all but 1 account, all to no fault of you, the support, you'd be at the baseline X salary. Right now if that happened, they'd lay you off and hand your accounts to someone else. So, what's worse is how I see it.  I don't disagree with the office politics, innovation being kept to the support personnel and not shared, and I could see toxicity, but I only see it if the numbers of employees don't decrease which they inevitably would. Turnover I think is key in the beginning. The crew would be dwindled down to half the numbers, and the requirements for the position should inevitably increase thus cultivating an environment that's no more toxic than an internal sales department who work side by side, for commission."
Good deal - glad to help.  It seems little is discussed and even less is actually known about this part of the back office. I've found a bit of recon and certain other ops exposure is invaluable no matter where you want to end up in a firm.  [FINRA 4523 \(pdf\)](http://www.finra.org/web/groups/industry/@ip/@reg/@notice/documents/notices/p123733.pdf) was the latest buzz at the office earlier this year.
Yea that's all fine and dandy if you have the resources to afford not having a reliable income while you take the risk of being entrepreneurial.    One of my good friends just sold his company to yelp for $9mil.  Good for him, I wish him the best.  But it's easy to justify taking the risk of starting your own company if your parents are worth $200mil and bought you a $3mil house.  In that situation, you aren't actually taking a risk.
"I actually interviewed to work at the SEC as an ""industry transplant.""  I was surprised to learn the limits of the SEC's power - namely, they cannot compel anybody to show them any documents - even ones financial firms are required to hold.  When firms do ""cooperate,"" they tend to make it as difficult as possible for investigators.  All the SEC can do in the end is sue the firm, and that's a long drawn out process (I understand now why there are so many settlements).  What I learned, however, is that the SEC needs more people like myself who have worked in the business.  Most people who interviewed me were attorneys and (sometimes) accountants.  Their experience in the financial industry was limited to working at legal firms who did financial advisory work.  Many simply don't even know what to look for.  I'm still waiting to hear back, but there are a lot of lawyers who are sick of working industry jobs and would love the pay and work environment of the SEC - so it's tough to get a position there."
"I'm interested in the answer to this question too. I got a job as an accounts receivable analyst about 4 months ago. It mostly involves running SQL queries on the companies database and determining whether things like the timing and movement of products/cash are appropriate.   About 95% of my day is spent in Excel either analyzing data trends, correcting accounts where product or cash is out of alignment, and writing my boss/the c-level conclusions based on the state of all things AR.  The other 5% of my day is staring vacantly at a blank piece of paper as I try to wrap my head around what I should be asking our database, and how to organize the results to find out what I need to be finding out. I would honestly say 30% of the work is mindlessly easy for me (now that I know what I'm doing), 50% of the work is smash-my-face-against-the-wall confusing, and 20% is ""I am solving problems by learning new things, hooray!"".  I was not particularly interested in finance, in fact my skill set was computers then I found languages and went on a decade long tangent learning that. Turns out languages don't pay the bills very well and I need a career. I can get my company to pay for some education, but I don't know if finance is what I really want to do.  Having read the rest of the comments in the thread, I will say I am not at all competitive with others (though I hold myself to very high standards). And if I feel others are too aggressive I will shut them out. I sometimes hear higher-ups in my company on the phone using their A-type personalities and wrestling with 3rd party companies and picture myself hanging up on them if I were on the other end of the phone."
It's clearly a risk, but is it any different than investing in your own business? Yes, it is different.  If you own a business, you determine the path of the business.  You determine how much risk the business takes.  You can put in extra effort to try to make the business work.  You can choose to liquidate to preserve your capital.   If you invest without ownership, perhaps the founder retains a 50% plus one share stake, then whomever controls the business controls all those things.  So you have all the risks of owning the business (in terms of things going wrong) without the control to make things go right.  This makes investing in someone else's business inherently riskier.   Another problem that can occur is that you could find out that the business is fraudulent.  Or the business can become fraudulent.  Neither of those are risks if you are the business owner.  You won't defraud yourself.   Angel investing, that is to say investing in someone else's startup, is inherently risky.  This is why it is difficult to find investors, even though some startups go on to become fabulously wealthy (Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.).  Most startups fail.  They offer the possibility of great returns because it's really hard to determine which ones will fail and which will succeed.  Otherwise the business would just take out the same loan that Jane's getting, and leave Jane out of it.
I don't know of any free API's for these data, but I'll provide what information I can. Compiling all of this information from the EDGAR system and exposing an interface to it requires a fair amount of work and maintenance, so it's usually market data companies that have the motivation and resources to provide such interfaces. I know of a few options that may or may not be close to what you're looking for. The SEC provides FTP access to the EDGAR system. You could download and parse the text files they provide. Yahoo Finance provides summary files of financial statements (e.g., GOOG) as well as links to the full statements in the EDGAR system. Once again, parsing may be your only option for these data. Xignite, a proprietary market data provider, provides a financial statement API. If you need these data for a commercial application, you could contact them and work something out. (Frankly, if you need these data for a commercial application, you're probably better off paying for the data) The Center for Research into Security Prices provides data from financial statements. I believe it's also exposed through several of their API's. As with most financial data, CRSP is sort of a gold standard, although I haven't personally used their API to fetch data from financial statements, so I can't speak for it specifically. This answer on StackOverflow mentions the quantmod R package and mergent. I can't vouch for either of those options personally. Unfortunately, you'll probably have to do some parsing unless you can find a paid data provider that's already compiled this information in a machine-readable format.
I was in a very similar situation and successfully landed my top choice job in finance. The best advice I can give is, as most people have said here before, network. I can honestly say networking is the main reason why I got my job. After networking though just make sure you are prepared for the interview. You mentioned that you were interested in ibanking. If so, don't bother spending your time making a buy-side equity report. Brush up on your accounting skills (know how to do a DCF), make sure you know exactly what ibanking entails and finally make sure you have a very solid story as to why you want to do it and what you hope to get out of ibanking.   It's a tough road but it is possible so don't give up.   Edit: Also don't just focus at BB banks. Look at boutiques and MM banks as well. Anything that will give you experiences you can put on your resume.
Well this was an interesting read, but sadly no one has given me anything I asked for. I'm not complaining, as I didn't expect a complete stranger to actually tell me how much they make, but I figured it'd be worth a try. Anyway, I'm gonna assume that you work in NY? If so, what were your starting hours like (approx) and also, do you work as a quant, cause it seems (correct me if I'm wrong) that you're describing an I-Banking job. Also, if you feel comfortable, a starting salary would be helpful as well. I'm trying to get real figures here cause everyone that I ask tells me something different.  Finally, I haven't completely taken NY off the table as an option, I would just prefer Toronto if it's possible.
"Wow, since I commented the down voters came for you.  Sorry about that.    For the record, I've been through the founding and funding of companies a number of times.  Only once as a cofounder, other times as a hired gun.  My perspective is that you need to go into VC funding with an understanding of what the VC's motivations are and where they are in their funding cycle.  In practical terms, that means that when presented with a 50% chance to get on base or a 2% chance of hitting a home run, they'll take the 2% chance every time.  The base hit is only marginally less expensive for them than complete failure.  Couple that with a few other factors and the set of companies that should take VC money is exceedingly small.  The problems come when companies that are marginal take money.  That's when things go to pot.  Valuations are bad because the company needs the money.  The ""Go Big or Go Home"" syndrome sets in.  VCs do flyby micromanagement, etc.  In the end, money is spent, when necessitates more being raise, which dilutes everybody.  Then is becomes a slog with no return for the average employee.  One tip:  If you every work for a company that takes a round in convertible debt, get out as fast as you can.  There's nothing there.  What the VCs are doing it trying to keep the company afloat until there's a (low value) sale.  Being convertible debt puts them in a better position for liquidation preference and there's still a small chance they may find a sucker who will pay top dollar.    It's a reasonable and helpful thing for them to do but it means the rank and file (probably including cofounders) are getting squat."
Go through a few of the public domain reports on the costs of risk management for banks. Convert qualitative results into some kind of quantitative data and try to answer the most basic questions. It's your job to decide what the hypothesis would be, but it is a hot topic in the industry and breaking new ground could open a lot of doors.