AI gold rush is breaking a taboo: cashing out before IPOS

When AI workplace startup Notion offered employees the chance to cash out some of their shares as part of a $270 million tender offer in January, the opportunity drew higher requests from former employees than the tender could accommodate.

- Kate Clark

The company had to scale back its payouts to former employees, according to people familiar with the matter, and Chief Executive Ivan Zhao apologized to them afterward.

Notion is among a host of startups and tech companies, including Stripe, OpenAI, Anthropic, Databricks and SpaceX, that are giving employees eager to access wealth tied up in private shares a way to cash out some of it.

It marks a shift in Silicon Valley culture as companies stay private longer. Selling startup shares early was long viewed as taboo and a sign of lacking long-term commitment.

Companies have been able to "successfully remove the stigma of doing secondary offers for employees," said Charlie Franklin, chief executive of Compa, which tracks compensation data. "The dam is broken." The number of tender offers completed on Carta, which offers financial services to startups, climbed 60% in 2025 from the prior year. Even young startups are pursuing tender offers, as demand surges for private artificial-intelligence stocks and founders recognize that such deals are crucial to retaining talent.