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The author spends a lot of time justifying why he thinks it's possible to pick "winning" startups, but then readily admits "it’s true you will probably not be b

• tptacek 9y ago
  Careful. The top venture investors are also disproportionately likely to back only companies with a clear argument for a billion dollar valuation. That argument is accompanied by commensurate risk. The VC doesn't care that the startup is far more likely than not to fail; failure is accounted for in their portfolio math. But you might! Depending on the structure of your comp package, the interests of the top investors are not necessarily aligned with those of a software developer.
  • r_sreeram 9y ago
    > failure is accounted for in their portfolio math. But you might! Exactly. Assuming the common claim of "90% of startups fail" (i.e., assuming each startup is IID with 90% chance to fail), an investor that invests in 7 or more startups has a more than 50% chance of seeing at least one succeed (1 - 0.9^7 > 50%), whereas as an employee of one of those startups, you still have a 90% chance of failure.