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It's crazy that Elon Musk still has 17 percent of Tesla and founders are giving away more than that just by series A. Is it because they are not creating anyth

• whatshisface 5y ago
  It is because they aren't self-funding in the way that an ex-Paypal billionaire can. Elon Musk started Tesla with enough money to be a VC himself, but put it in to his own companies. Normal SWEs can follow this example by saving up and being willing to work for a big discount if it's their own company they're working on. That's not going to let you start a car company but for a website it might be enough.
  • SmellTheGlove 5y ago
    > Elon Musk started Tesla with enough money to be a VC himself, but put it in to his own companies. Didn't he _not_ start Tesla, though? I thought he bought his way in, and negotiated cofounder status?
• duped 5y ago
  I'm not an expert in this, but most startups that have tried to recruit me in series A/B have such small ambitions (or more quantitatively, TAM) that I can understand why investors want higher stakes. If your TAM and desired market capture implies revenue of less than like $500 million the company is never going to IPO, just for example. Side note, as a potential employee (and a different kind of investor) that's the determining factor in whether or not the equity vs paycut gamble makes sense.
  • neilc 5y ago
    > If your TAM and desired market capture implies revenue of less than like $500 million the company is never going to IPO, just for example. The vast majority of tech companies that IPO have revenues of (much) less than $500M.
• KptMarchewa 5y ago
  Musk bought his shares at series A.