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Yes, because you are ignoring the fact that most engineers that make money off stock options are doing so at well-established startups that haven't gone IPO yet
by argonaut 10y ago
Yes, because you are ignoring the fact that most engineers that make money off stock options are doing so at well-established startups that haven't gone IPO yet. Companies like Airbnb, etc. 4 years ago, everyone knew Airbnb, Pinterest, etc., would be successful.
- aaronbrethorst 10y agoKind of like how everyone knew Evernote would be successful four years ago? Or Gilt? Or Dropbox? Or Fab? Or Foursquare?
- argonaut 10y agoThe only companies whose options are worth 0 (zero) in your example are Gilt and Fab. Evernote and Foursquare are still around - your options are worth less than their private valuations if you joined 4 years ago, but they are not worth 0, even after dilution. Foursquare is still a $650M company. And only in some twisted world is Dropbox not a success. They're a friggin multi-billion dollar company even if they aren't a 50 billion dollar company (the horror). I also didn't say you're going to have a 100% stock option hit rate for companies that are pre-IPO. You are still taking on risk. But your hit rate is going to be a lot higher. It's also rather telling that these are among the worst examples of pre-IPO tech companies you can think of.
- aaronbrethorst 10y ago> It's also rather telling that these are among the worst examples of pre-IPO tech companies you can think of. Nah, just the first ones that came to mind. Theranos is another good one I should've mentioned.
- argonaut 10y agoTheranos was never in the category of going-to-IPO-soon.
- aaronbrethorst 10y agoArguably, neither were any of the others; none of them ever published an S-1.