4 ms·

the article is decent from the perspective of an "english major" but it unfortunately embodies many falsehoods perpetuated by wealthy people (VC's) and believin

the article is decent from the perspective of an "english major" but it unfortunately embodies many falsehoods perpetuated by wealthy people (VC's) and believing these unquestioningly will fuck you. stock options are not a lot of money. they're just not. unless you're employee #5 at dropbox or something, you really aren't going to become super wealthy off of your start-up options, and you most certainly will make more money working for a bigger company. this isn't to say "don't work at a startup" - it's more like, "don't work at a startup because you think you'll become wealthy." work at a startup because you believe in what the company does and you want to just get things done without red tape and excessive meetings and other crap. just don't think you'll get rich working for someone else; it's possible, but very unlikely.

gaius 13y ago
Twice, I have had stock options, as an employee in the low-10s at small companies. Company 1 IPO'd in the dotcom boom, my options that had actually vested came to maybe 6 months worth of my then-salary. A nice chunk o'change to be sure, but buying a house? No way. Paid off my student debt, had a couple of very nice vacations. By the time the rest vested, they were underwater. Here's the kicker: employee #1 was a good friend of mine and we did a show-me-yours-show-you-mine. He got exactly the same as I had. Huh. Second time, small company acquired by much larger public company. Again, about 6 months worth it worked out to, tho' of course my salary was abit higher then. Paid the deposit on my first flat which was nice, and some furniture and a fancy TV, but very, very far from buying the flat outright for cash. Nowadays I work for a giant corporation, my salary is actually just over the salaries from those two jobs combined, and stock options are of zero interest to me.

gaius 13y ago

Twice, I have had stock options, as an employee in the low-10s at small companies. Company 1 IPO'd in the dotcom boom, my options that had actually vested came to maybe 6 months worth of my then-salary. A nice chunk o'change to be sure, but buying a house? No way. Paid off my student debt, had a couple of very nice vacations. By the time the rest vested, they were underwater. Here's the kicker: employee #1 was a good friend of mine and we did a show-me-yours-show-you-mine. He got exactly the same as I had. Huh. Second time, small company acquired by much larger public company. Again, about 6 months worth it worked out to, tho' of course my salary was abit higher then. Paid the deposit on my first flat which was nice, and some furniture and a fancy TV, but very, very far from buying the flat outright for cash. Nowadays I work for a giant corporation, my salary is actually just over the salaries from those two jobs combined, and stock options are of zero interest to me.