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That is really great advice unless the company you're working at turns out to be really valuable, in which case it's really bad advice.
by austenallred 8y ago
That is really great advice unless the company you're working at turns out to be really valuable, in which case it's really bad advice.
- kortilla 8y agoOnly if you got in really early and even then it statistically won’t happen. It’s like saying lottery tickets are a bad investment idea. It’s true for far more people than it isn’t.
- austenallred 8y agoIt's <50%, but chances of winning the lottery are 1 in 292 million. I'd bet if you picked a promising company (say Series B+ on the breakout list) your likelihood of a positive outcomes is >=10%. Not high, but very different than lottery tickets.
- meesles 8y agoYou'd be betting on the probability of outcomes of choosing startups with successful outcomes, you must see the absurdity! Regardless, at least a lottery's odds are fixed. For a startup not only do you have a direct impact on the outcome, but there's near-infinite number of internal and external factors that can make a company fail, or, very rarely, succeed. I think that's one of the big selling points on options: It's a lottery ticket but you are directly capable of affecting your odds. Theoretically if a group of 100 people all feel that way, they should be able to do some amazing things!
- dinedal 8y agoAlso, you can buy as many lottery tickets as you can afford - you only have so many shots at picking a promising company in your working days.
- dragonwriter 8y agoThose seem equivalent, just with a different limiting resource.
- roguecoder 8y agoEven at seed stage, if you're picking from the same group as Crunchbase is the 2008-2010 cohort had a 30% chance of an exit and a 1% chance of becoming a unicorn. 1 in 100 is much better odds than 1 in 292 million.