The fastest way to wealth is actually through winning the lottery. Equity is kind of a lottery, but with you having an influence in the odds.
It's important and could definitely make you rich, but it shouldn't be counted on.
Just pretending it’s $0 is a mistake.
I live in Palo Alto and I’ve seen many people get rich through equity, people who just read HN outside of startups don’t think it’s possible, but it is.
I didn’t realize how possible until I moved out here. FAANG salaries have tempered that a bit since you can just get rich on that income, but even a lot of that comp is equity too (and most of the people I know got most of their wealth from that equity).
I’m just telling people reading this in college to take equity value seriously and not dismiss it as worthless because people on HN say to do that all the time.
The vast majority of those people who you are giving that advice to will be played for suckers. It is good advice only for a tiny fraction that have the capacity, the opportunity, and the resources to negotiate a non-exploitative equity package. It is terrible advice for all the rest.
The advice being dispensed is superficially applicable to everybody who gets offered an equity package, and it is terrible advice for most of those people.
It's like giving high school basketball players advice which assumes they'll make it to the NBA.
With RSUs in public companies, it's essentially (if not entirely) impossible to lose money. With RSUs in private companies, it's very much possible to be worse off than if you didn't have those RSUs to start with. Namely, if you pay the taxes out of pocket and the shares end up being worth less than what you paid in taxes (or are even completely worthless).
Options make the math even more complex regarding taxes/potential upside or downside.
I think a lot of it just depends on intangible, hard to define things like how good of a candidate you are (are you going to a startup that competes with top tech companies for talent, or one that isn't) and what type of companies you want to work for (for example, a boring ecommerce or enterprise SAAS company with revenue very early on is probably more likely to pan out than a self driving car startup or anything long-time-prerevenue). So while it might be true that in general startup equity and options are going to end up being worth little to nothing, it might be the case that for you and the companies you're trying to work at, you have much better odds.
https://dqydj.com/net-worth-by-age-calculator-united-states/
Living in a 5000 sq ft luxury apartment in Manhattan makes you rich whether you rent it, own it and regardless if you need to work to afford it.
For 14 months I lived on a $2,250/mo salary in downtown Boulder, CO. That meant trying to scrounge free meals from meetups or wherever else would feed me.
The idea of having a million dollars, or even making 200-300k a year is so insane to me. If that isn't rich maybe I missed a memo somewhere.
i'm not arguing these people aren't rich. just trying to help illuminate why they never feel rich (and therefore don't seem to acknowledge that very obvious fact about themselves).
I'd say it's more related to the imposter syndrome. IE if I got here and I'm just ok, clearly this wasn't too hard a level to reach.
That and "well I used to work with so-and-so, and we're about equal, but they're making $800k while I'm stuck making $400k, so I'm clearly failing". Or even $2M vs $10M, etc.
Again, it's crazy, because both people are clearly actually "rich", I'm just trying to explain the mechanics of why so few actually feel that way.
I doubt most people go to a company they expect will literally have no value. If you're going to a private company it's either because you think it will be valuable, you think the work is interesting which could possibly make it valuable, you get an insane salary offer or because you can't find another job.
In basically every case, you understand the company has possible value, which could translate into increased wealth.
The idea is simply that its not worth anything until it is. Once you're in the company and can feel out the actual trajectory and faith in the business, you can decide if you want to buy the shares.
Nearly everyone I've worked with across multiple companies have purchased up most or all their shares, even when they expressed how little faith they had in the company. If you're doing that, what does it matter if you sat down and crunched the numbers? You still got the lottery ticket.
The most important thing is that, with public equity, you can tell when it's happening. If you work for a public company and the stock price goes down, that's public information, and you can readjust your valuation of your future compensation and react accordingly. If you're getting paid in funny-money private options, that doesn't work for two reasons. First, the value of your future compensation can change without your knowledge (e.g., with the introduction of preferred investor classes). Second, the value of past compensation can effectively change post-facto if you're forced to hold options for a significant amount of time.
If you weren't born to one set of parents, you don't randomly start in a different set of parents, as far as I can see.
So the fastest way to wealth is to be the result of a long family tree spanning back to the prototypical creatures?
or as I call it my only investment portfolio...