Subject: I took the wrong day job
I shoulda been a manager.

Upstart's top managers are set to lay a giant stinky egg in Q1.
They expect revenue to be down 65% year-over-year and down 29%
sequentially from Q4. They're guiding for a GAAP loss of $145M.
They plan to use $15M in cash to get rid of 20% of their staff.

Woes "R" Us.

For that anticipated performance, they've just awarded themselves
1.8M shares in the form of restricted stock units (RSU) and
options. I estimate the value at around $27M.

Earlier this month, I estimated that their stock based compensation
would rise by about $41M in Q1. This was an astounding increase.
I was struggling to see where it could come from. The 27M awarded
is about 2/3 of that $41M, so that answers that.

Incidentally, it's also about 1/3 of the stock they repurchased in
2002.

I suppose they need some additional incentive to show up for work
every day. After all, they're only getting paid about half a million
dollars each in salary.

Ears <long Upstart>