Great, great article. I'd like to add: This, I think, is one of the big reasons why startups prefer hiring young people (ie, recent grads) - young people just

Great, great article. I'd like to add: This, I think, is one of the big reasons why startups prefer hiring young people (ie, recent grads) - young people just don't know any better. They have the barest idea (if any) what dilution, ratchets, preferred participations, etc does to their already minuscule equity package. "OMG I'm getting 70,000 shares!" is what I thought about my first startup. Wasn't even offered (and didn't bother to think about) anything else. Perhaps I'm projecting too much of my ignorance back then on newly minted grads now, but it's safe to say that lack of experience in the myriad of different ways things can (and most likely, 99% chance) will devalue the work I'm willing to put into a company at 80+ hour weeks. The most inane argument I hear from founders nowadays is "we just got funding, so we're de-risked". Nice try. Just cause you sold someone with money to burn (VCs have a bias to action - "gotta get that IRR to our LPs in 10 years!") does not mean you've de-risked anything. Proper de-risking comes from finding a real product-market fit, with achievable financials metrics that pave the way to real profitability. Anything else is just greater fool theory - hoping a greater fool comes around and buys the company's story. EDIT: Member notacoward has a great comment about rank and file employees also not appreciating the back-end commitment usually required at an acquirer. In the highly "fortunate" event where the startup is acquired, there's usually at least a 2-3 year commitment after that fact to get liquidity. This is assuming liquidity is even available! With the ever-telescoping horizon to an IPO for even the "unicorns", I wouldn't be surprised if most rank and file employees are committed to 6, 7, even 8 years to achieve full (diluted) value of their option packages.