Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
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Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
1–10 of 124 posts
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#2Because they get to keep that money and the 0.001 less people are also okay with the agreement.
Life isn't fair.
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#3[deleted]
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#4It may not be normal, but the startup I was involved in never had to raise money. Were we all founders? Is anyone they continue to hire a founder?
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#5It may not be normal, but the startup I was involved in never had to raise money. Were we all founders? Is anyone they continue to hire a founder?
At some point your startup put a fair market value on its stock. That means equity for new hires had a dollar value when they joined.
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#6no, but the founders founded something. The emploees just got a job. btw A job that didnt exist before the founders did their thing.
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#7Well, if the choice is nothing versus something, then there is a lot of value in the person who took nothing and turned it into something. Employees wouldn't have made anything from the venture without the founders.
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#8[deleted]
How exactly does someone who takes on very little risk being rewarded with 100k translate into them getting 'fucked?'
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#9When I was a kid my mom would complain about how the world was out to get her. She didn't frame it that way, but that's essentially what she was saying. One time she was complaining about lawyers because she was charged $300/hr or something like that. I asked her, "why don't you become a lawyer?"
It made sense to me as a 12 year old and still does.
Re: Are founders really 1000x more valuable than their employees?
#10This isn't about who is more valuable, this about who took the risk.
Employees take little or no risk in 99% of cases. You are not taking a risk making 75% of your max pay at Google/Facebook/Zynga/Twitter by going to a startup. You are taking a 25% haircut to be part of something new/small/etc.
However, starting something from scratch, incorporating and putting your reputation on the line is a major risk. If you are the creator you carry the lifetime risk/reward of your startup.
The founder(s) of Friendster, PointCast and Webvan will always be remembered a certain way. As will the founders of Twitter, Groupon, Yahoo and Google.
The employees that come after them do not carry this personal risk/reward issue. They can always say "I joined Freindster and it was a great learning experience."
The founder of Friendster will have to explain for all time why they were first and failed so horribly. How they missed the opportunity to be MySpace, LinkedIn or Facebook.
That's the real difference in my mind: personal reputation risk.