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You've nailed it. I can't afford my mortgage and kids school if I take a startup gig unless I start burning my investments. It's way too risky, especially sinc
by colordrops 5y ago
You've nailed it. I can't afford my mortgage and kids school if I take a startup gig unless I start burning my investments. It's way too risky, especially since the investments are doing well. I totally would love to work for a startup, even do longer hours, but no one is willing to make offers for people in my class. I'd even be willing to burn some of my current investment if the startup gave a serious equity chunk, but the offers ive been seeing would require years of steady and significant growth for the equity to match my current FAANG comp. And that's just match, not exceed. Startups are way too greedy with equity.
- runako 5y ago> Startups are way too greedy with equity. And this has gotten worse. During the .com explosion, the war for talent saw younger engineers (<= 5 years of experience) were getting 1%-3% in companies that had already received VC funding, while also getting raises from other firms. Compared to the grants on offer today, the risk/reward is completely inverted.
- missedthecue 5y agoThe valuations today are just so much higher though. Pets.com, the poster child of dotcom era excess IPO'd at a $250mm valuation. Companies today are raising 2x or 3x that in their series C these days! 1Password picked up $620mm in their series C just the other day.
- runako 5y agoThis means the early employees today are producing more economic value for shareholders and are being paid less for creating more value! (Unless early team sizes have changed substantially, which I don't believe to be the case.)