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This article misses the more interesting thing, which is tech founders getting huge pay packages for companies that haven't yet delivered anything or have no re
by lph 5y ago
This article misses the more interesting thing, which is tech founders getting huge pay packages for companies that haven't yet delivered anything or have no realistic path to profitability. They call out WeWork and Theranos, but fail to see how close many of these others are to those. Archer? We're never going to see air taxis in our lifetimes. Nikola is already a collapsing scam. Bird? They are never going to be able to charge what it actually costs for a scooter rental, just like all of failed bike shares.
The measure for founder success is now "able to raise an obscene amount of capital", and not "able to build a sustainable business". Investors should run screaming from SPACs, but they don't, because the sheer inertia of a high valuation brings in the next wave of dumb money, allowing the early investors to cash out. It's a damned Pyramid scheme. We are truly living in the golden age of scams.
- q1w2 5y agoSort of. The pay packages may be high in "value" but since they are all in multi-year vesting stock options, the founder still needs to make the company successful in order to cash any of that money out. It's not like they're throwing tons of cash on him/her.
- alisonkisk 5y agoAs Silicon Valley said, the product is not the app, and not thr Box, it's the company.
- tmccrary55 5y agoEchoes of the dotcom bubble