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Wait a second... Half joke: Isn't being founder and running a company about making mistakes all the time, learning from them and hoping you avoided the really bad mistakes?

no joke: I wouldn't criticize someone who

1. Founded a company

2. Had the company under his or other people management go to 100m USD

3. Kept some equity, even 1%

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“Mistake” is very clearly referring to the topic of retaining equity, with the assumption that more is better. I’m not criticizing the founder in general; e. g. Microsoft has made many mistakes in its history, but clearly Gates is immensely successful.

Obviously if giving up 99% is what enabled you to get to the 100m, then sure, it could be considered worth it. But if we look at virtually any startup with a high valuation, the founders always manage to maintain more than 1%.

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