Guest: Gordy Davidson (Fenwick & West)
"Never, never, never, never give up." ~ Winston Churchill
Entrepreneurship is a team sport. What are the critical human resource issues for new ventures? The NanoGene case examines the big three: building team, developing a compensation policy, and creating an innovative culture.
Powerpoint Deck with 6 slides maximum and Excel Spreadsheet. This is our Policy on Case Analyses. Follow it for all cases when your team is assigned responsibility to submit your analysis.
Decision:
Take the role of Will Tompkins, co-founder and CEO of NanoGene Technogies.
What compensation package will you offer to Paige Miller?
In particular, what will you do for Paige given the Capitalization Table provided in Exhibit 2?
If you could, how would you change the Capitalization Table?
Analysis:
What analysis supports your proposed offer and your proposed changes to the capitalization table?
How strong a candidate is Paige Miller? What makes you think so?
How does a compensation package motivate an executive? What signals do you want to send Paige with her offer?
What impact might Paige Millerfs compensation package have on the motivation and morale of Willfs co-founders and other NanoGene employees?
How might job offers to new executives affect Nanogenefs gCulture of Equality?h
Reality Test:
How will Paige, the VCs, the Board of Directors, and your co-founders react to your offer?
How about future executives and employees you may hire down the road?
What are the risks of this offer once you implement it?
How will you manage those risks?
Be prepared to role play Will Tompkins, Paige Miller, or one of the other stakeholders in class on Monday.
We will have two student teams present their opening with what they would do if they were Will Tompkins before Gordy Davidson from Fenwick and West arrives. We will have a brief case discussion. Then we will role play the compensation negotiation between Will, Paige and a VC/Board member. Gordy Davidson will participate with class members in the role play. He will then give some of his insights as an engineer|turned attorney who has been involved with many of the leading high tech ventures in Silicon Valley in the last several decades.
Have fun with the case DART. And this is a gentle reminder that everyone is expected to be prepared, whether your team has a DART for Monday or not. We look forward to seeing you Monday.