>Not the majority, but not an outlier either. No, literally an outlier by definition. How many people do imagine are joining startups world wide? In your cas

>Not the majority, but not an outlier either. No, literally an outlier by definition. How many people do imagine are joining startups world wide? In your case it sounds like it's even worse than I had imagined: do you really just know a dozen early Facebook employees? I had assumed that you lived near a startup hub and knew a dozen people who happened to have made it. >it would be impossible for me to know multiple people that are rich as a result. Not if you e.g. go to a "lottery winners" cruise. But seriously, the company is the lottery ticket. If the company wins then, sure, plenty of other people in that company will win and it's possible for you to hang out with lots of them. But what you're forgetting about is companies that were of similiar size that don't exist anymore. There have still been so few billion dollar startups that most people on this site can probably name them all. >The odds aren’t good but it’s by no means a lottery, either. Of course it is. How many startups are there, right now, world wide? How many startups make early employees rich per year? Now compare the odds of finding such a startup with just buying a lottery ticket and I suspect you'll find the lottery ticket a bargain. >Startup equity is likely worth nothing, but there’s a small chance it’s worth an extraordinary amount. That’s not “worthless.” But this is the falacy of the lottery ticket itself: I could just spend $20 and it might pay out $100 million. But if you apply the Kelly criterion you'll find that it's a bad EV play, every time. And, as I mentioned, the lottery ticket is quite a deal compared to a startup: I'm just out $20 or so. With a startup I'm thowing away potentially years of better earnings for something with a ridiculously low probability of actually happening. And keep in mind that your future salary is generally related to your current one so discounting your value by 40-60% is something you'll very likely never entirely recover from. And this is ignoring any career growth opportunities that were also lost. So "worthless" is the wrong term for startup equity. Strongly EV negative is much more accurate.