3 ms·

I would be surprised if the number of millionaires minted from being an employee (not founder) at a private tech startup founded in SF was over 1000 over the la

by tempsy 7y ago

I would be surprised if the number of millionaires minted from being an employee (not founder) at a private tech startup founded in SF was over 1000 over the last 10 years. Even if you're employee #10 the amount of equity you receive is, if you're lucky, maybe .20%, and drops exponentially from there. Employees working at the big cos likely made much more depending on how long they held on to their RSUs than your average startup employee.

echelon 7y ago
You're definitely wrong. I'm at a company that minted over a thousand millionaires, assuming they held onto their options. That's just one company.
- tempsy 7y ago
  1000 millionaires at a private startup that went public? Only one I can think of is Uber where there could’ve been that many employees with significant equity, but that is really a generational company. Thinking of the ones that reach peak value in the low billions. AFAIK engineers were getting around 12K RSUs pre IPO, maybe 20K for senior ones, which at today’s valuation is not even close to a million.
- speedplane 7y ago
  > I'm at a company that minted over a thousand millionaires, assuming they held onto their options. Okay, so that requires the company to be sold for at least $1B, the employees collectively own 100% of the company, and the stock is evenly distributed. Given the investor's share and uneven distribution among employees, for there to be 1000 millionaires, the company would have to sell for at the very least $5B (probably much more). There are only a handful of companies that have sold at that level, certainly not common.
doublement 7y ago
I would estimate that the typical software developer working over that 10-year period and putting the money into either S&P 500 or a house saw an increase of $1M in their net worth.
- tempsy 7y ago
  Anyone could’ve done that living anywhere. It’s not particular to living in SF.
  - doublement 7y ago
    You are moving the goalposts. A moment ago you were saying it wasn't happening in SF, now you're saying it happens everywhere.
    - tempsy 7y ago
      Uh no. My point was that being a tech worker in SF, even at a “unicorn”, does not automatically mean you’re going to be rich, and that anyone who invested their savings in public equities available to anyone could’ve turned a modest amount of capital into something much larger without having anything to do with SF or working in tech.
      - doublement 7y ago
        There's a huge difference between an average person in a random place investing $10K left over after their bills are paid, and an SF tech employee working with at 5-10 times that amount.
        tempsy 7y ago
        Again depends. Not everyone is working at a FAANG, meaning if they have been working at private tech co yet to IPO then their equity comp is all illiquid so they don’t necessarily have a ton of cash.
barry-cotter 7y ago
> I would be surprised if the number of millionaires minted from being an employee (not founder) at a private tech startup founded in SF was over 1000 over the last 10 years. That would be roughly 100 a year. Y Combinator definitely funds more than a 100 startups a year, and it funds a small minority of all startups. Given that there were over 250 yet to IPO unicorns as of 2018 and Google alone made over 100 millionaires when it IPOed I think you’re off. > Employees working at the big cos likely made much more depending on how long they held on to their RSUs than your average startup employee. Most employee stock options are more akin to joining Stripe now than to joining a company that just left YC.
- tempsy 7y ago
  Ok. So what’s a more realistic number? Again if you’re granted .2% as a very early employee you will make low millions if it does IPO for over $1B. The 100th employee at that company is not making anything close to that, especially the non-technical ones. Working at a unicorn and receiving equity does not automatically mean your grant is anything close to 1M. It completely depends on when you joined, job title, seniority, and whether it’s a technical role or not.

by tempsy 7y ago

echelon 7y ago

You're definitely wrong. I'm at a company that minted over a thousand millionaires, assuming they held onto their options. That's just one company.

tempsy 7y ago
1000 millionaires at a private startup that went public? Only one I can think of is Uber where there could’ve been that many employees with significant equity, but that is really a generational company. Thinking of the ones that reach peak value in the low billions. AFAIK engineers were getting around 12K RSUs pre IPO, maybe 20K for senior ones, which at today’s valuation is not even close to a million.
speedplane 7y ago
> I'm at a company that minted over a thousand millionaires, assuming they held onto their options. Okay, so that requires the company to be sold for at least $1B, the employees collectively own 100% of the company, and the stock is evenly distributed. Given the investor's share and uneven distribution among employees, for there to be 1000 millionaires, the company would have to sell for at the very least $5B (probably much more). There are only a handful of companies that have sold at that level, certainly not common.

doublement 7y ago

I would estimate that the typical software developer working over that 10-year period and putting the money into either S&P 500 or a house saw an increase of $1M in their net worth.

tempsy 7y ago
Anyone could’ve done that living anywhere. It’s not particular to living in SF.
- doublement 7y ago
  You are moving the goalposts. A moment ago you were saying it wasn't happening in SF, now you're saying it happens everywhere.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    Uh no. My point was that being a tech worker in SF, even at a “unicorn”, does not automatically mean you’re going to be rich, and that anyone who invested their savings in public equities available to anyone could’ve turned a modest amount of capital into something much larger without having anything to do with SF or working in tech.
    - doublement 7y ago
      There's a huge difference between an average person in a random place investing $10K left over after their bills are paid, and an SF tech employee working with at 5-10 times that amount.
      - tempsy 7y ago
        Again depends. Not everyone is working at a FAANG, meaning if they have been working at private tech co yet to IPO then their equity comp is all illiquid so they don’t necessarily have a ton of cash.

barry-cotter 7y ago

> I would be surprised if the number of millionaires minted from being an employee (not founder) at a private tech startup founded in SF was over 1000 over the last 10 years. That would be roughly 100 a year. Y Combinator definitely funds more than a 100 startups a year, and it funds a small minority of all startups. Given that there were over 250 yet to IPO unicorns as of 2018 and Google alone made over 100 millionaires when it IPOed I think you’re off. > Employees working at the big cos likely made much more depending on how long they held on to their RSUs than your average startup employee. Most employee stock options are more akin to joining Stripe now than to joining a company that just left YC.

tempsy 7y ago
Ok. So what’s a more realistic number? Again if you’re granted .2% as a very early employee you will make low millions if it does IPO for over $1B. The 100th employee at that company is not making anything close to that, especially the non-technical ones. Working at a unicorn and receiving equity does not automatically mean your grant is anything close to 1M. It completely depends on when you joined, job title, seniority, and whether it’s a technical role or not.