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Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

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Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#151

Post by loumf »

throwaway1122 wrote: post #146

I was an employee #15-30 range of a small startup and got around $200k out of options and $1.3M of additional RSU upon acquisition. I've more or less kept all of my equity. Because the parent company did well, they're currently worth roughly $2.5M post tax (and I'm hoping the parent company continues to do well).

If you had $2.5 million cash, would you put it all into one company? Even if you like crazy growth stocks, there's an index fund for that.

This is about risk reduction and wealth preservation -- going for expected value maximization is not a good idea when you only get one shot.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#152

Post by FD3SA »

tptacek wrote: post #67
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you'd understand if people discounted your comment slightly because of your apparent close relationship with YC, then? They have the best interests of founders in mind only insofar as their pocketbooks and reputation benefit from it. That's at best an intersection that doesn't contain all the elements in both sets. Disclaimer: I'm a pretty cynical and skeptical person by nature. I'm especially suspicious when…

Hopefully a little less than they'd discount a comment from someone who'd casually impugn the integrity of a total stranger on the Internet solely to make a banal point-scoring argument.

A complete ad hominem. You did not address his point at all, which was quite valid.

Have a read over this [1], one of countless studies which supports the original commenter's assertion that wealth and status accumulation tend to the be prime directive of every individual who has even a modicum of either asset.

If PG and YC truly cared about entrepreneurship in spite of their own best interests, they would be working tirelessly for a worldwide basic income which frees talented individuals from the whims of VCs, incubators, and employers alike and allows said entrepreneurs to fully focus their energies on bootstrapping their ideas with maximum freedom over their time, equity, and strategic decisions.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9226268

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#153

Post by foobarqux »

honestfeedback wrote: post #135
foobarqux wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did you leave?

My reasons for leaving were 100% personal. Financially I would have been much, much better off staying for at least another 2-3 years.

When you say personal do you mean unrelated to your work?

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#154

Post by tptacek »

FD3SA wrote: post #152
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully a little less than they'd discount a comment from someone who'd casually impugn the integrity of a total stranger on the Internet solely to make a banal point-scoring argument.

A complete ad hominem. You did not address his point at all, which was quite valid. Have a read over this [1], one of countless studies which supports the original commenter's assertion that wealth and status accumulation tend to the be prime directive of every individual who has even a modicum of either asset. If PG and YC truly cared about entrepreneurship in spite of their own best interests, they would be working…

I don't think we're working from the same definition of "ad hominem".

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#155

Post by fizx »

robrenaud wrote: post #147
jjoonathan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think there are many who would seriously suggest that YC/PG have bad intentions but survivor bias can have exactly the same effect. So can a "big picture" view: a 90% probability of failure might not seem nearly so bad to someone who can hedge by investing (not necessarily just $) in hundreds of companies. Expectation maximization is much more appealing when you have enough trials to get one of them off the g…

It seems rational for entrants in a YC class to all invest in each other, to hedge the failure risk. Why doesn't everyone in a given YC class (say, of 100 people) agree to give 10% of their company to a holding company, in response for 1% ownership of that holding company?

Everyone might have to be an accredited investor, which the majority would not qualify for. Another potential problem is that companies want to keep their cap tables minimal for regulatory reasons. Also, how does the 10% vote in board decisions?

Also, what if some companies held out. So now 80% of the YC companies are in this hedge fund. Wouldn't the most successful companies disproportionately come from the 20%--the ones who had enough confidence to reject the deal? Would the smart people in the 80% then defect as well, bringing the cabal down to 60%?

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#156

Post by mark-r »

angelbob wrote: post #149
mark-r wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"1 out of every 10"? That sounds high to me. Is it based on YC-backed founders, founders in general, or totally made up?

It's a standard figure. Suspiciously round, basically unsupportable. It's really hard to measure what percentage of companies fail because so little of the data is public.

But the figure wasn't companies that didn't fail, it was companies that made it big. Surely that's an easier number to come up with, depending on your definition of "big".

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#157

Post by kgc »

tptacek wrote: post #31
_abattoir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, PG's advice is not useful for all founders, just the 1 out of every 10 that makes it big. The others are supposed to nut up and get over it. His advice does, however, benefit every venture capitalist.

Critiques of Paul Graham and YC lose me the instant they suggest that they're rigging the system for venture capitalists. I've got friends in YC, I've worked closely with YC companies for years, I know several people at YC, and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that their intentions are (a) good and (b) founder-aligned. I'm pretty sure they're wrong about a couple things --- particularly the stuff that comes from…

What do you see wrong in PG's early essays?

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#158

Post by snowwrestler »

GFischer wrote: post #58
dangerboysteve wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, at least you are not Ron-Wayne.

I was not aware of his story... ouch: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Wayne "He sold his share of the new company for US$800, and later accepted US$1,500 to forfeit any claims against Apple."... "Had Wayne kept his 10% stock until then, it would have been worth approximately $60 billion."

Not a bad time to remember that Ron Wayne has said he does not regret getting out of Apple.

$60 billion is incomprehensible to most people. It's money so big that it is not money anymore, it's the power to make society-level decisions. In a sense it is so big that it becomes an obligation--see Bill Gates and Warren Buffett.

Steve Jobs himself was not nearly that rich because he made decisions for reasons other than money--like selling all his Apple shares out of spite when he got fired. And sinking huge amounts of his personal wealth into NeXT to design the computer he thought should exist (but which never sold well).

In a macro sense it is good that it is so hard to make large sums of money. It ensures that the people who make that money will at least have some ideas about what to do with it. Contrast with the typical fate of lottery winners. Most self-destruct in pretty short order.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#159

Post by lotso »

_abattoir wrote: post #24
tptacek wrote: post #16

Yes, my first startup job got me into the high end of that range, as employee #5, with a relatively small acquisition. I know several people who took home much more from employee roles (albeit in larger acquisitions) in the recent past. A lot of it has to do with who you work with. In every case I can think of, windfall money for employees came from founders with a track record of accomplishing that (or, in my case,…

Right, PG's advice is not useful for all founders, just the 1 out of every 10 that makes it big. The others are supposed to nut up and get over it. His advice does, however, benefit every venture capitalist.

>nut up

It would be nice if people on Hacker News would not use phrases like this.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#160

Post by ScottBurson »

porter wrote: post #119
abstractbill wrote: post #105

I was the first employee at Twitch, back in 2007. It worked out very well for me, but - having watched the sausage get made - I'm very aware of how incredibly lucky I've been. It could very easily have all come to nothing. To be honest it's not something I'd ever advise someone to do, even though it did happen to work out for me. I'd advise most people to join one of the big giants and enjoy a predictably comfortable…

What does "worked out very well" mean? Also, what do you mean by watching the sausage get made? Not sure I follow.

"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made." [0]

There have been many variations on this quote; the one I like best is "Those who love sausage and democracy should not see either being made."

[0] http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe

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