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Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

businessinsider.com

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Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#131

Post by ProAm »

chc wrote: post #98
soperj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

Woz wasn't even there for the time of Apple's greatest success. You don't have to like Jobs, but he did great things even without Woz.

WIthout Woz there is no Jobs or Apple to know of. He is (arguably) the more important founder in regards to Apple.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#132

Post by late2part »

dsirijus wrote: post #109
joshpadnick wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can understand a part of your perspective. After all, from an objective point of view you are the one who's ultimately accountable for getting things done. And by that logic, you deserve the lion's share of the rewards when they come due. But the problem with your reasoning is that, in reality, growing a successful company is a team sport. No matter how brilliant you are, you alone are no match for a high-performin…

Already prepping groundwork for the next CEO in the 2015, no worries. I know I'm not fit for this. 4 months to go. "He who tells the truth will be chased out of nine villages."

Disgraced unknown founder says: He who act like asshole get chased out of company.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#133

Post by refurb »

mikeyouse wrote: post #129
refurb wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$5M doesn't go that far anymore. If you're young and you have $5M, you could take 4-5% per year and make it last 40-50 years. That's only $250,000 per year, pre tax. Good money, but certainly not enough to not have to think about money anymore.

Your $5M liquid would be earning interest the entire time too. With that much money, it'd be 'easy' to make 4% - 5%/year, so you could live on $250k/year and never touch the principle.

That was my point. A good rule of thumb is that you can pull 3-4% out of a investment each year and you will never run out. Increase that to 4-5% and it should last your entire life.

Don't get me wrong, $250K per year pre-tax is a very comfortable lifestyle. However, it's not so much money that you can spend without thought.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#134

Post by tricolon »

cjslep wrote: post #52
soperj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

I believe it was Steve Kent's The Ultimate History of Video Games Atari portion that really fleshes out Steve Jobs. The two anecdotes I remember are: 1. People in Atari generally considering him an oderous hairy hippie who once disappeared from work to go to India for self-enlightenment, but returned with Hepatitis. 2. He (Steve) was once offered $100 per transistor he could eliminate below the 100-transistor mark fo…

> He (Steve)

I figured it out, but I just want to point out that there are three Steves to whom you refer.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#136

Post by x0x0 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #13
x0x0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And great employees can always go to {google, fb, twitter, microsoft, salesforce, etc} and get paid $250-$300 / year in cash or cash equivalents, instead of $125-$150 plus lottery tickets. In fact, I remember reading that round A is the worse time for an employee to join a startup: the large grants are gone, but the business isn't derisked, so your lottery tickets still have shit ev.

Right. Ultimately participating in a startup as an employee and as a founder are two totally different life choices with very different skill sets required and very different arcs. Founders have to juggle making sure the company is on track building value with courting investors, keeping track of the balance sheet, designing the product because they're the only ones with enough skin in the game to do them effectively…

your comment is... well, less coolaid maybe, or less hero syndrome

Courting investors does not build value. Building a product builds value.

Plenty of people can and do design products.

In the case of an acquihire, founders, unlike employees, often clear a decent chunk of money (say $.5-$1.5mm) plus get an interesting job. (I personally know of several such cases).

There is plenty of unethical behavior by founders, but most of it isn't discussed in public or on HN, but rather privately between peers.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#137

Post by JohnTHaller »

nedwin wrote: post #107
JohnTHaller wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if we take the above poster at their word that it would have to be a billion dollar exit to be worth their while (and net them a million dollars for X years at below market salary) and assume your dilution numbers are accurate, they'd only get 200 to 400k. There would have to be a 2.5 to 5 billion dollar exit for their diluted tenth of a percent to net them a million.

You're assuming all startups pay below market.

I'm taking the post we're responding to at face value: "If I'm going to take less than what I believe to be the "market rate" for my services in lieu of some equity and my motivation is to make money, then I'm going to do the math and weigh the probabilities of my equity and the lower-than-market salary being more lucrative than taking a job with no equity and a market rate salary."

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#138

Post by methehack »

throwaway7808 wrote: post #119
methehack wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with timr here. You guys are missing the point. It's not math. It's trust. There's no way to predict the outcomes. Options are little more than signals of intention. At point of exit, everything is in the air and you are not part of the negotiation. What's it worth? Do you have to move? Do you report the Chief VP of Total and Complete Meanness? You get paid because someone is looking out for you. The way to e…

Hey, do you want to join a cool startup that I'm working on? I'll look out for you, no worries. Just work and have fun, and I'll take care of the rest. By the way, there's also an investment opportunity, you see I've recently came into ownership of a certain bridge....

No thanks.

I'm not saying you shouldn't have an agreement or you shouldn't make it as solid as you can. Obviously, you should do this. I'm saying that's not enough. The perfect agreement means very little if the agreement is with someone untrustworthy.

Trustworthiness is often harder to judge than you might think because untrustworthiness and charisma seem to intersect pretty heavily to me. That leads to the unfortunate situation that assholes are likable. Boo hoo.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#139

Post by soperj »

eeeeeeeeeeeee wrote: post #111
soperj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

Are you joking? Look at the developer community in OS X and iOS that are constantly tinkering and learning. Jobs was absolutely an asshole, but to say he "set us all back" is preposterous.

You can develop on iOS? Can you do anything on iOS aside from what apple allows you? Not if someone hadn't figured out how to jailbreak the device.

Re: Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires

#140

Post by soperj »

autism_hurts wrote: post #81
soperj wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

You know that the simplicity Jobs rallyed for so hard early on is probably why computers are so successful in the mainstream, right?

No. In spite of his micro-managing engineers and developers managed to make great products that he advocated pretty packaging for. Apple has never made products for the mainstream anyway, they've always charged a premium which has put them squarely out of the mainstream.
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