I think this is a really good article, but I think that one of the things it misses is that a huge reason the math works out so badly for startup employees is because founders and VCs take the lion's share of the gains.
I mean, in my experience at startups, founders typically own around 40% of the equity. The option pool for all other employees is around 10-20%.
Now, I certainly believe startup founders deserve far more equity than anyone else, but this highlights that the risk/reward trade-off really only makes sense for founders. I mean, what founders risk in terms of opportunity costs and lower wages is usually only slightly more than very early stage employees, but their reward is ~10-30x. The reward, in rare cases, may also make sense for C level hires at proven startups that are already growing like gangbusters, because they'll get a ton of equity. For rank-and-file, though, the issue is that even if the startup hits it usually becomes more like a nice bonus than life defining wealth.
I mean, in my experience at startups, founders typically own around 40% of the equity. The option pool for all other employees is around 10-20%.
Now, I certainly believe startup founders deserve far more equity than anyone else, but this highlights that the risk/reward trade-off really only makes sense for founders. I mean, what founders risk in terms of opportunity costs and lower wages is usually only slightly more than very early stage employees, but their reward is ~10-30x. The reward, in rare cases, may also make sense for C level hires at proven startups that are already growing like gangbusters, because they'll get a ton of equity. For rank-and-file, though, the issue is that even if the startup hits it usually becomes more like a nice bonus than life defining wealth.