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> if VC needs 500 investments to make a 15% return on average, you need 5000 years to get the sames returns as a line worker This doesn't necessarily follow. A

> if VC needs 500 investments to make a 15% return on average, you need 5000 years to get the sames returns as a line worker This doesn't necessarily follow. A "line worker"'s downside risk is the opportunity cost they pay for working at a startup, which has a different distribution than the investor's downside risk (the whole investment). At the extreme end I'd argue that e.g. WeWork's investors came out of it worse than the employees.

vkou 6y ago
The downside distribution is more punishing on the low end. For people who need to pay rent, buy food, and pay medical bills, a 90% probability of losing half your wages is generally not worth a 10% probability of making 7x your wages. That's because the less money you have, the more valuable a dollar is.
- chii 6y ago
  > a 90% probability of losing half your wages is generally not worth a 10% probability of making 7x your wages. this is a fairly bad expected value: 10% * 7 * wages - 90% * wages/2 = 25% * wages So you expect to lose 75% of your wages! Nobody is gonna agree to do that! A more realistic scenario is 10% * 100 * wages - 90% * wages/2 = 955% * wages
  - vkou 6y ago
    Your math is wrong. 0.5 * 90% + 7 * 10% = 1.15 average.
    - Tomminn 6y ago
      For the record, the correct way of doing the first math, centered such that 0 represents no change to your wages, is as follows: 0.1 * 6 - 0.5 * 0.9 = 0.15. That is, a 10% chance of a 6 fold gain, and a 90% chance of a 50% loss (-50% gain), gives an expected value of a 15% gain. Your math is correct also, and has 1 represent no change to your wages instead.
      - vijayr02 6y ago
        Actually, it's a bit more involved than that... The gain is a one time amount Wages are recurring income. So when wages fall by 50% you need to value an annuity with half the cashflows as before. The PV of your wage income stream over some time horizon can then be compared with the one time gain. Otherwise you are comparing a stock concept (wealth) with a flow concept (income)
yowlingcat 6y ago
Correct. Another vehicle to display your point may be to consider the serial startup executive, who leapfrogs from growth stage startup to startup every few years, collecting 0.5%-2% of each in the process. For people who want to make returns from their stakes in startups, that seems like a better idea than going the VC route because it's easier to get better information and better deals as an insider. You can only make so much money from startups by gatekeeping how other people's money is invested. That skill does not an operator make. VCs with operating experience I think operate with a different toolset and underwriting criterion than lifers.
ry454 6y ago
Investors lose only a small portion of their assets and most importantly they don't have to lose time. Whether 2% of my liquid assets is more valuable than 4 years of someone's life is debatable, but I can certainly say the loss of those 2% won't make any impact on my life, while that worker won't ever recover his 4 years.

vkou 6y ago

The downside distribution is more punishing on the low end. For people who need to pay rent, buy food, and pay medical bills, a 90% probability of losing half your wages is generally not worth a 10% probability of making 7x your wages. That's because the less money you have, the more valuable a dollar is.

chii 6y ago
> a 90% probability of losing half your wages is generally not worth a 10% probability of making 7x your wages. this is a fairly bad expected value: 10% * 7 * wages - 90% * wages/2 = 25% * wages So you expect to lose 75% of your wages! Nobody is gonna agree to do that! A more realistic scenario is 10% * 100 * wages - 90% * wages/2 = 955% * wages
- vkou 6y ago
  Your math is wrong. 0.5 * 90% + 7 * 10% = 1.15 average.
  - Tomminn 6y ago
    For the record, the correct way of doing the first math, centered such that 0 represents no change to your wages, is as follows: 0.1 * 6 - 0.5 * 0.9 = 0.15. That is, a 10% chance of a 6 fold gain, and a 90% chance of a 50% loss (-50% gain), gives an expected value of a 15% gain. Your math is correct also, and has 1 represent no change to your wages instead.
    - vijayr02 6y ago
      Actually, it's a bit more involved than that... The gain is a one time amount Wages are recurring income. So when wages fall by 50% you need to value an annuity with half the cashflows as before. The PV of your wage income stream over some time horizon can then be compared with the one time gain. Otherwise you are comparing a stock concept (wealth) with a flow concept (income)

yowlingcat 6y ago

Correct. Another vehicle to display your point may be to consider the serial startup executive, who leapfrogs from growth stage startup to startup every few years, collecting 0.5%-2% of each in the process. For people who want to make returns from their stakes in startups, that seems like a better idea than going the VC route because it's easier to get better information and better deals as an insider. You can only make so much money from startups by gatekeeping how other people's money is invested. That skill does not an operator make. VCs with operating experience I think operate with a different toolset and underwriting criterion than lifers.

ry454 6y ago

Investors lose only a small portion of their assets and most importantly they don't have to lose time. Whether 2% of my liquid assets is more valuable than 4 years of someone's life is debatable, but I can certainly say the loss of those 2% won't make any impact on my life, while that worker won't ever recover his 4 years.