Car stuff (public number: chedongxi)
Author | The Way
Edited | Mumi
According to foreign media reports, on March 1, local time, lidar startup Luminar submitted financial statements to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) showing that in order to poach Tesla's legal vice president Alan Prescott, they offered a high salary of $30 million (about 200 million yuan).
Prescott's salary over the next six years will consist of stock incentives and cash, with a cumulative amount of $29.5 million (about 200 million yuan). According to people familiar with the matter, the total amount of stock valuation plus cash is comparable to Prescott's salary package when he was at Tesla. For a veteran lawyer who has a deep understanding of the automotive industry, this salary is more reasonable.
It is understood that after Prescott left Tesla in April last year, he soon became Luminar's chief legal officer. Previously, he worked as an engineer at Ford for a year, and after pursuing a law degree at Georgetown University, he returned to Ford to continue working for a decade. After that, he worked at Uber for a year before joining Tesla after leaving in 2017.
First, the annual salary guarantee of 350,000 US dollars 4 years can obtain 350,000 shares of stock
Luminar's financial statements to the SEC include their employment agreement with Prescott, which clarifies the compensation and equity incentive conditions that Prescott should receive after working at Luminar. The main contents of the agreement are as follows.
On March 25, 2021, the two parties signed an employment agreement, and on November 11, 2021, the agreement was revised. According to the regulations, Prescott can receive a basic salary of $300,000 (about 1.9 million yuan) and a year-end bonus of $50,000 (about 320,000 yuan) per year, and can enjoy the employee benefit plan. In addition, Prescott's work is not subject to other restrictions, and the parties may terminate the agreement at any time.
At the same time, Prescott enjoys an equity incentive plan, and if he does not resign within four years, he will receive a total of 353,000 shares of RSU shares (restricted stock units) in installments. If Prescott is dismissed or voluntarily resigns for legitimate reasons, or if there is a change in control of the lidar company Luminar, the unowned shares in RSU should be returned.
Luminar's document described the composition of the legal officer Prescott's salary
Second, Tesla often has executives leave jobs to prefer startups
It is understood that in addition to Prescott, in recent years, a number of executives in various departments of Tesla have left one after another. Last June, Tesla's former deputy general counsel, Lynn Miller, left to join self-driving truck startup Plus. At the same time, Tesla's public documents show that Jerome Guillen left his job just three months after becoming president of the heavy-duty truck division, and now serves as a consultant for Full Speed Automation, an American intelligent automation software startup.
Jerome Guillen, former president of Tesla's heavy-duty truck division
Earlier this year, Valerie Capers Workman, Tesla's vice president of human resources, also proposed to leave, and later joined the recruitment startup Handshake as chief legal officer.
In addition, Prescott, who left in April last year, is also the fourth general counsel to leave Tesla in the past three years, joining lidar after leaving.
Personnel changes in large companies are more common, but compared to other companies, Tesla's brain drain rate is higher, as early as 2019, Tesla's executive turnover rate has reached 44%, which is twice that of Lyft. In recent years, there have often been news of Tesla executives leaving, but the fate of executives after jumping jobs is quite OK.
Conclusion: Tesla executives leave more frequently
The reason for the departure of Tesla executives has not been disclosed to the outside world, after all, they all have good work ethics and legal awareness, and can only be spied on Tesla's corporate culture and Musk's speech on social media.
According to foreign media analysis, the high turnover rate of Tesla executives may be inseparable from Musk's high-pressure policy. According to departing executives, Musk has extremely implemented an overtime culture at Tesla, requiring employees to complete tasks within a limited time.
In addition, Musk has both excellent and hard-working advantages, but also paranoid and grumpy shortcomings, he has ignored the self-esteem of employees to criticize analysts, and social media is also unabashed, which has laid the foundation for the subsequent brain drain.
On the other hand, it is Musk who founded a rare company in the world like Tesla, and the sales of electric vehicles have broken records many times. Maybe he can't really satisfy the employees, but in terms of products, Musk tries his best to improve, attracting a large number of loyal users and followers, making Tesla one of the most wanted companies for American college students to enter.