> I know several people... And for every person you know there are dozens of stories about people who didn't even come close to recouping their salary differen

> I know several people... And for every person you know there are dozens of stories about people who didn't even come close to recouping their salary differential. And those are just the "successful" startups that had some sort of exit. So the risk is (obviously) real. > its a statement about your risk averse world view, not a statememt of fact. No, it's a (true) statistical statement that you're misrepresenting as a categorical one. > loudly proclaiming that you are valuing options at zero is great way of letting your co workers and others know of your level of interest in the success of company Does the VC who's investing in a profile of N other companies also not have much interest in the success of the company? I mean, if they REALLY believed in the success of the company, then why aren't they just throwing all N at the company? The only difference between the VC and the employee is that the employee is providing a limited resource (time) that can't be split among N bets, while the VC has enough cash to afford to make risky bets. So it's entirely possible that the company has an negative expected value for an employee and also a positive expected value for the VC (and founder, but for different reasons).