The funding market, like that for employment and marriage, clears at different prices for different individuals. I'd say the number of founders who can truly a

The funding market, like that for employment and marriage, clears at different prices for different individuals. I'd say the number of founders who can truly aspire to get funded by the "Big Boys" (and have the choice you talk about) is relatively small - for example my lack of connections in the US precludes me from raising from them because I can't get a proper warm intro. You need to align a lot of stars. That being said, I think he was referring to the complexity of multi-note cap tables (and time and mental effort required to deal with their preferred stock classes etc. vs 5 equivalent other deals using a vanilla structure) rather than the billionaires outbidding him. He talks more about it in another post [1]. Having been on a desk that traded exotics I very much agree that (unnecessary) complication in financial products is not a good thing, and is usually associated with people hoping you'll slip up. [1] https://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator-What-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-YCs-SAFE-securities-versus-convertible-notes/answer/Jason-M.-Lemkin https://www.quora.com/Y-Combinator-What-are-the-pros-and-con...