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Zach Holman recently blogged about this: I saw GitHub’s valuation move from sub-$10M to more than $2B; beyond that, GitHub is turning a decade old this year. T
by GuiA 10y ago
Zach Holman recently blogged about this:
I saw GitHub’s valuation move from sub-$10M to more than $2B; beyond that, GitHub is turning a decade old this year. Traditionally, this would be a great point where lots of little companies get spun off from this created wealth, and employees and former employees would be able to help with that.
In reality, I can probably count on one hand the number of people from GitHub who are in a financial position to become true angels. This is far from a problem unique to GitHub; the entire industry is concentrating its cash in a select few.
https://zachholman.com/posts/slow-exits https://zachholman.com/posts/slow-exits
HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13655855 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13655855
- econner 10y agoI thought his point was just that GitHub is still private. Snap going public is a different situation.
- abalone 10y agoHolman was writing about slow exits, and how they keep employees illiquid and even claw back equity from those that leave. Snap is not a slow exit. It may or may not produce a bunch of millionaires but it's definitely not what Holman was complaining about. In fact he would probably praise them for going public ASAP, like the old days.
- GuiA 10y agoMmh. Yes, but I think the two are two sides of the same coin. Not only are exits rarer, but the companies who do exit produce fewer people who are then in a position to keep the innovation cycle going. Holman touches on a few reasons why in his post: "...concentration of wealth, and legal stipulations like gnarly 90 day exercise windows".
- abalone 10y agoThe exercise window is a non-issue after a company goes public. That's his main complaint about what's keeping wealth tied up.