This was really hard to read, but I can't wait for the video to be released. Unfortunately for this conference (Business of Software) that tends to be a year later when they start selling tickets for next year's conference.
I wrote this up as my notes on the talk as I did with all the others. I set my self a target of posting the notes by the time the next talk started otherwise I would not have got round to writing the notes up. Read them in that context and am very happy to get other input if I missed anything which I am sure I did.<p>Joel's talk was interesting but it was not hugely structured so notes probably represent that, though I take full responsibility if I misrepresent.<p>The issues around shares and employees however were a mess. Joel's company structure evolved out of Kibbutz where reward is based around time served and seniority of people. He admits happily to making a big mess of this and suggests getting advice from the outset. He had assumed that he could just give employees shares once the investment had been made but of course, if he did, they would have had to pay tax on them at market rate.
<i>When the investment was made, lots of people had shares in the business. They had not done the paperwork on the shares etc and had not realised that just telling people they would be looked after to avoid paperwork would create big headaches.</i><p>Wow, I'm pretty shocked that someone who already owns and runs a business would not take care of something so basic when setting up a new business.