Yeah good point, it's definitely not fair to say I'd be taking the risk.

I guess I just find it really strange for them to say you'd own the technology you create.

"Workers aren't putting themselves at risk when they go to work" is a myth.

Ok, if using a scalpel to dissect the statement minutely. The statement could be more precisely that workers have little to no income risk while working. One is paid where they have accepted both the upside and downside risk.

People always combine this point with workers being able to be fired or to have skills outdated. Those are different factors, where an individual should always look & project forward to place themselves in future better positions.

You still take a risk because if your project fails for whatever reason, you're stuck on a CIA salary, rather than a SV salary where you'd probably be making twice as much even if your project fails there too.

Are we talking about founders or FAANG developers?

Last I’ve read on HN, most founders are not making “SV salary” because they’re expecting the golden ticket. Here, it appears you get an equivalent salary + job security with a capped upside.

You say "equivalent salary" but compared to what? You mentioned FAANG above so I assume that? Unless you're ignoring total compensation, that's not right. You're going to have a much lower base compensation at CIA labs than FAANG. The $150k extra might only match FAANG, and would probably take years of effort to get it at the CIA.

I imagine if you're talented enough to work at CIA labs you could land a much more lucrative and guaranteed FAANG compensation package instead.

I assume they're gonna scoop up all the Palantir guys after the IPO.

How are they going to get the Palantir people? Doesn't Palantir pay extremely well?

I don't think people in this thread understand: The starting salary range for a "Technical Developer" is $60k-$150k according to their website. I imagine it's similar for CIA labs. That won't get any FAANG or Palantir developers out of bed in the morning unless they think being in the CIA super cool or something.

Palantir does not pay well, or at least used to not. They had a disclosed relatively low salary cap back in the day.

https://www.quora.com/How-does-Palantir-attract-talent-if-it...

Interesting, sounds like I'm mostly wrong about Palantir vs the CIA, unless the prospects of Palantir IPOing is luring.

Regardless, I'm much more familiar with FAANG compensation and my comments are still accurate for those.

It's a great deal. It's not meant to replicate a startup equity lottery ticket, it's closer to a financial services bonus or RSUs at Big Tech. ~$300k/year total comp and low risk compared to unicorn equity lottery is a no brainer, although if you can hustle and have the talent, you might do slightly better at FAANG.

Sorry, I meant compared to being a bog standard IC at FAANG. Not a founder or anything like that.