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Comment by slumpt_ | Hacker News Reader

How many HN posts did we have for all the startups that went under or sold for pennies on the dollar?

My friends who spent 6 years at a startup just found out his equity is literally worth pennies on the dollar. It will be a write off at best.

2020 as well. This mentality of looking at successful exits is the same now as it was a decade ago or more.

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I didn’t say everyone is going get rich joining a startup. But there’s a dozen startups from Airbnb to DoorDash to Roblox to Affirm to Coinbase to Robinhood that IPO’d this year or will next where early employees who had strike prices in the pennies or dollars will become very wealthy.

And that’s always been the case. The point is that joining any of those companies once they are notable and large means your strike and equity offering will be sufficiently small as to render it a nice consolation prize and probably (hopefully?) make up for the years you weren’t earning equity at a higher-paying public firm.

Yes, there are always people winning the startup lottery. That has never changed and nobody has ever claimed winning at it is impossible. No, there are not many of them and now is no better a time than any other.

The lottery is the lottery. World keeps spinning.

Well funded private startups have competed with the FAANG on compensation for years. They in fact overcompensate to make up for lack of liquidity and inherent risk you take. Those employees who took the Airbnb offer are doing way better than if they took an equivalent role at a Google or Facebook.

The point is the term “lottery” is like a 1 in a million chance or more. Startup options are not a 1 in a million random scratch off ticket. You make an informed decision about a company when you decide to join just like a VC would. It isn’t like you’re picking a company to work for at random.

> You make an informed decision about a company when you decide to join just like a VC would.

Firstly, almost no startup I've seen lets me look at the cap table or board minutes, much less finances. So you get a very limited view as an employee or potential employee.

Secondly, even suppose you had the same knowledge as a VC -- the VC is making a portfolio bet that 1 of their 20 companies will hit it big. You get one lottery ticket, not a portfolio, so the risk/reward is totally different.

I trust you are smart enough to be well aware of the kind of bias you are bringing to the table with this judgement, in addition to some plain inaccuracies (actual startups - not AirBnB years deep into its lifecycle where the equity being doled out is not going to make you rich in an exit) regarding compensation vs giants like any FAANG.

I am glad you are excited about working at startups. There are a lot of people on here with a LOT of working experience who have seen this game play out over and over and are not dazzled by a handful of giants making it out anymore.

Yes, it’s probably better odds than the literal lottery. That does not say a lot. Anyhow, I’m happy you’re excited and am not going to convince you - clearly. Enjoy your weekend dude.

I guess I “won” the lottery working for one of the companies going public but all of these names have been highly visibly for nearly the whole past decade and an option anyone could have considered over a big corporate job.

If you have known about this company for 10 years and gotten in late your lottery ticket will look like you matched 4 numbers out of 6 with a few extra thousand. But you also took less money over that time so the amount drops.

If you got in before anyone heard of the company it could be a true lottery ticket.

What companies do you know that have been around for 10 years that someone should join today to get the next lottery ticket?

Go to levels.fyi and retroactively give yourself an SDE2 / SDE3 job for the years you worked at the startup, then compare that to the payout someone would have had from working at AirBNB for the last few years. Even if you assume you liquidated all the RSUs as they vested, it's tough to say that the cushy, low-stress $300k+/year FAANG job would've been a bad choice.

> You make an informed decision about a company when you decide to join just like a VC would.

Do you know how much more information a VC gets before it closes a deal vs yet another employee? Do you get to see their books before you get hired? likely no. Likely not even once you are an employee. This is kept very far away from you.

The actually promising startups don't have problems finding people. From what I've heard, it used to be way harder to get into Google in the early days compared to now. So most people only have a choice among a bunch of non-promising startups.

Yes, and people do win the lottery. The question is what is the real value of the options, reward and risk.

And for every one you've heard of, there are IPOs you've not heard of, acquisitions, etc.

You might not get rich, but there are plenty of folks out there who have made a few hundred thousand in a small company IPO, or an extra $50k for 6 months of work, or whatever.

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