David Thomas is a partner in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's compensation and benefits practice. For more than 25 years, Dave has provided legal and practical guidance on compensation and benefits issues to companies of all sizes, including their compensation committees, boards of directors, and board special committees. Dave was selected in the inaugural class of NASPP Distinguished Equity Fellows, has been inducted as a Fellow of the American College of Employee Benefits Counsel (a national distinction for employee benefits lawyers who have made demonstrably substantive contributions to the field of employee benefits over their career) and has been recognized in multiple editions of Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business, in which commentators praised his responsiveness, “unmatched ability to think outside the box to develop bespoke solutions,” and “strong ability to translate complicated matters in an understandable way.”

Dave spends much of his time assisting high-growth companies with compensation and employee benefits issues affecting recruiting and retention, primarily including the design and administration of equity incentive plans and employment agreements. He has substantial experience with public offerings, having represented issuers in 34 successful initial public offerings—which raised an aggregate of more than $10.6 billion—since 2010 and underwriters in an additional 26 during the same period. Some of the more notable of these IPOs include representation of Palantir in its direct listing and the issuers in IPOs for AppLovin Corporation, Forescout Technologies, BlackLine, GoDaddy, Box, Square, and Twitter.