As for $3.7 vs $2.9...that was basically the number that, to oversimplify, would roughly give the outcome I wanted for "retirement" when it comes to investment interest over the next 50 years.

Basically, it's the number I felt comfortable with to not instantly feel like I needed to get back to work in a few years.

> We aren’t spending Silicon Valley-amounts on salaries, but we’re certainly not on the low end. From the perspective wanting my team to love where they work and not have to worry about money, I’m very happy with the salaries everyone gets.

We sold for a similar sum and the bonuses were pretty small by SV standards - a bit more than £20,000 for a few, down to a few £00 for people who had just joined (maybe 50% annual salary for a few).

Me & my partner had a fishy earnout clause over 12 months, but I got us pleasantly fired after 3. Half the staff got made redundant after 6, which I don't believe was a surprise to any of them. Nobody buys a business for its cosy culture, or sells one expecting it to stay.

I think it's right for founders to be up-front about the likelihood and consequences of an exit, which is why we put it in our employment contract. But IMO more than 10% would be very generous for these ordinary private buyouts at 4-5× profit - no rocket ship valuations. At least that's clearer and more certain (and less tax efficient) than the kinds of games people play with options & rounds of funding.

UK tech companies, salaries & employee expectations are a whole different world from what's discussed here. Maybe Baremetrics was closer to that world than SV.

(In another life I wish I'd looked into what our old customers Torchbox did last year which is form an employee-owned trust and sell to that - https://torchbox.com/blog/not-selling-up/ )

Most of my startup jobs have paid market rate. The shares and options have compensated for the risk, not a lower salary.

I'm sure some accept lower salaries, and certainly the salaries won't be comparable with the very top end of the market, but most people don't work in the top end of the market.

A startup that tried talking me into a massive cut without offering me basically founder-level share amounts would be an instant red flag.

From the founder himself:

> We've had carryover losses for years, so from a tax perspective, there was no hit on either side.

I realize that tax losses can differ from cash losses, but are you so sure about that?

We’re also a company that has purposefully operated right around breakeven for years. So, unless you’re a “strategic acquistion” that throws acquistion multiples out the window, a slow-growth software company without lots of profits and a product that’s technically quite complex is ultimately just not going to get a huge multiple.

Those employees are just as responsible for the company’s success as the founder is; it sucks to see them get shafted while the founder walks away with “fuck you” money.

To badly paraphrase someone: “The idea isn’t what’s valuable, the implementation is.” That implementation is probably >90% thanks to “the help”.

Did they take a full standard salary? (Doesn't have to be SV 100k+ salaries, but standard for whatever is paid in their area). Did they do more than just code? etc etc

By your logic, the butcher who worked for market wages in a meat processing company should get a big pay day because Nestle decided to buy them.

As for entitlement, what entitles a founder to get ~50x the payout of their employees? Especially when they're also taking a SV level salary (not living in SV) and spending VC money.

Add to it the last four years of "culture" growth leading all west coast tech workers to demand you add 10% overhead to your business to advance diversity, equity, and inclusivity, which in reality is just advocation for the right kind of politics to be brought into company culture, and you get a crazy stressful soup for any founder.

Moving on to your second point about entitlement. Of course the founder is entitled to 50x the payout. You seem to be severely discounting risk. Did you see this founder's list of other failures?[1] They can pay themselves whatever they feel is right. They took the risk, failed multiple times, and finally got lucky. Of course they can reward themselves how they see fit. There are so many founders who never see the reward and end up with worse careers because they only kept founding companies rather than choosing a "stable" career. To me it seems like, in your view, the guy who didn't take the risk founding companies and got to join a "sure" job by joining a rapidly growing startup gets to be rewarded comparably to the guy who started something, working, spending years not sure where it was going to go. Why would anyone take the risk of starting a company? I'd rather join a fast growing startup if my reward is quite comparable to the founder's. Low risk, high reward.

[1] https://joshpigford.com/projects

If you can, you should get a job at Google and get a great salary (which is still a tiny sliver of Google's monster profits).

If you can't then you have to settle for lower paying job at a company that doesn't have monster profits like Google and therefore cannot pay you outsized salary.

Employees don't "deserve" anything other than the market salary.

It goes both ways. Employers don't "deserve" Google-level programmers for half the salary that Google is willing to pay. And I'm sure they would love to get great talent at reduced prices just like you would love to get great salary regardless of your talent and contribution to the business.

The market salary happens when both parties work to advance their self interest. "deserving" has nothing to do with it.

If a founder is spending VC money and paying themselves a SV grade salary, I would have trouble calling that a significant amount of risk.

If you want "returns", you're better off getting a stable, higher paying job and investing the excess in public markets. You have diversification and liquidity.

And, as I've said elsewhere, startup salaries are rarely on par with the industry average. Working at a startup is typically sold as "you'll be paid less, but if we sell you'll get a payout to make up for it".

If you wanted to say how it seemed to you and raise the questions you felt were unanswered, that's of course fine. But jumping to psychological interpretation and personal denunciation based on a handful of beans in a blog post is not the kind of magic beanstalk we want here.

I mean, in this example Baremetrics actually had a pretty good outcome, better than most, and the employee's basically got very, very little for their overall equity. Even the founder probably got less than a mid/senior level FAANG employee would get (and the FAANG employee had no risk).

Of course, not everyone can get an offer at a FAANG, but again, if you could get an offer, startups basically never make sense anymore. You almost always will get more even if the startup hits, which is rare.

Note that this is true for many reasons, not all of which are related to technical ability. Not everyone should try to get a FAANG job, either.

Factors candidates may consider:

* how much time they want to spend interviewing/prepping

* what their previous experience has been

* where they went to school

* where they are willing to live

* what type of work they like to do

* what type of organizations they enjoy being part of (largeco, smallco)

* how much control they want over their work

* what kind of impact they want to have

* how much they want to learn (and what type of knowledge--general vs specific)

In addition to salary, all of these play a role in determining whether a startup, small biz, other software company or FAANG make sense for an individual.

I mean "how much time they want to spend interviewing/prepping"?? If a FAANG will average 2-3x payout, it would be insane not to be willing to prep for literally months if that made the difference between getting a job and not.

It's not for me (or you) to decide for others, however :) . I just think there are many more dimensions than raw salary to consider. You could work like a dog for 5 years at a FAANG, make a ton of money, and die just after you retire. It's all weighing the risks and rewards and there isn't a formula for that.

BTW yes, 2-3 months of free time to prep may not be worth it given:

* one will miss/sacrifice other aspects of life

* one may not get the job. Nothing's guaranteed, after all

* the job may not be right even if they get it

At that salary you're looking at probably a 15 minute commute. By bike even if your office isn't in SF itself or you don't mind the hills. It's the startup employees in the bay area that don't have the money to live closer or have their own places.

>You could work like a dog for 5 years at a FAANG

From what I've found, startups and non-tech companies work you a lot more than FAANG especially if you're not looking for fast promotion in FAANG.

(A $1.5M mortgage is around $6k per month today.)

And at the end of the year, even if what’s left over in terms of percentage of income is the same (and it’s usually not, because many COL expenses don’t scale linearly with the cost of housing), you end up with more in the bank to send your kid to college or to retire.

You are presenting a theoretical ideal that is probably close to unattainable.

- how many tech startups are in Birmingham?

- how many VCs would be OK funding a startup in Birmingham? I know we're in COVID era now, but how long before VCs again start telling you to move to SF/SV (or perhaps NY)

- how many 150k salaried tech startup jobs are in Birmingham? I'd estimate in the single digits, probably zero.

EDIT: looks like copy/paste deleted some of the post, adding back:

$450k is likely $200k base, $40k bonus and $210k RSU (source levels.FYI). Most lenders won’t touch RSUs unless you had 2+ years at the same income level and even then they don’t like it. So taking 45% DTI (debt to income) ratio of base + bonus nets $9000 payment (principle + interest + taxes + insurance) and translates into $2mil purchase price assuming the hypothetical person also has $400k downpayment and reserves. That price point gets something like this:

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Mountain-View/2507-Alvin-St-94043/...? (3/1.5 1500 sqft 5800 sqft lot)

Let’s say RSUs take care of savings/extras.

Schools don’t look great for this house. This is where commute comes into play - you can trade long commute for more house and better schools.

Unfortunately, the geographical reality of Bay Area mean that there isn’t a lot of middle ground between short commute/lots of cost/other trade-offs or very long commute, but better everything else.

If you want a house, median is above $2M: https://sanjoserealestatelosgatoshomes.com/mountain-view-ca-...

Another thing to consider is that housing stock in Mountain View is very old on average, so the $2M price point doesn’t get you a mansion, but rather a very modest house (especially when considering that we are talking about TWO MILLION DOLLARS after all)

I earn well, so granted I'm not turning down as much as some would, but to drag out a tired old saying, I work to live, I don't live to work. I have plenty of things I want to do - some of them I can do in the right job, many I can't.

Of course one of the luxuries of already earning well is that the multiple of my current salary it'd take to convince me to take a job I don't actively love the sound of is far higher that it otherwise would be.

I don't know many other professions where high salaries are pretty much a given, without cutthroat competition among your peers?

You can get high payouts building a company, becoming a top lawyer or medical professional, but the investment in time, effort, and money is much higher, and the chances of success are lower.

Could I speed this up by another 5-10 years by moving to California to help monopolists serve ads, suppress competition and lure users into walled gardens? Sure I could. And what's wrong with stoking the world's most overpriced und undersupplied real estate market with another willful participant in the process.

That said, "insane" strikes me as an extreme choice of words for someone forgoing this golden opportunity.

My experience in the one of them has been the opposite of what some of the bullet points implies, or at least in a 'positive' direction.

I know for a while the rumors were basically that if you hadn't gone to a place like Stanford, you weren't getting a job, at least at Google (Maybe Facebook too?)

Is this still the case? (Was it ever the case, or were things a more flexible?)

If you have experience already, where you went to school gets dramatically less important the more experience you have. I went to a decent (but definitely not top tier) state school and have 15 years experience, had no trouble getting interviews at FAANG companies and passed interviews at a few.

This is at all relevant only for getting into the interview process, which is something that is largely handled by recruiting. Once a candidate makes it to a phone screen with someone like me, where they went to school has no bearing on whether they move forward in the process.

And most importantly, the company can afford to pay well. Not quite FAANG level, but plenty for you to reasonably plan to retire (in a FIRE way) at 50 instead of 65.

And heck if it does hit, you’re early enough for a nice cushy bonus.

edit: yes the difference in comp is easily 100k+, but making 180k+ cash to not be a small cog in a gigantic machine, to me, doesn’t sound that bad

The only realistic value to assign is zero.

It's not guaranteed like a FAANG salary (which actually isn't completely, the past few years have seen great stock appreciation), usually it takes a few rolls of the dice, but it's just not accurate to describe it as a definite 0. Startup selection ability pays a serious role here, I've seen people whose picks I shake my head at consistently, and some people who can home in on successful ones like heatseeking missiles. If you're the type to take the story of a business person about lofty valuations and prospects at face value, though, you're probably going to have a bad time and end up bitter and talking about how bad a deal startups are on the internet.

But basically, you really need to do your homework and treat it like you’re making an investment.

For everyone else, the last point is CRUCIAL

> treat it like you’re making an investment

Remember, if you are giving up a market total-comp package (e.g., 200 or 300k+) for a below-market startup package -- you are literally investing the difference. Treat the difference as an investment.

Also keep in mind, unlike public stock or real estate investments this major, you also often have no visibility into financials -- discount for that.

You also cant sell when you may need to -- discount for that also.

Unlike a property or stocks, you dont get interim dividends/yield -- discount for that also.

You may also be forced to invest heavily or forgo stock if you leave the company -- discount for that.

If the company sold for $10 million, I would have ended up with about one years worth of the lower end salary...which was about 1/2 of what I could make from an average offer in rural parts of the US.

Ten years later, the company finally sold.

And you're kinda simultaneously arguing it's a good outcome and a bad one, in both cases the reason is the founder owned most of it. The net is that it's a mediocre outcome, just that in this case one guy did ok. If you can get nine other people to contribute towards building up your side project to sell for an average market price of the technology and business, you can get more, sure. But it's not "successful startup" more.

Not really... he's been working on the startup for 7 years. Let's assume he had an average salary of 150K during those years. Plus he got $3.7M on the acquisition (it's not clear from his post if that's what he takes home or if it's pre-tax). That's 4.75M.

Now let's assume a senior engineer in FAANG with a an average salary of $350K for 7 years. That's 2.45M. That's a very rough comparison and not taking into account taxes (the FAANG engineer is likely to pay more money in taxes overall).

But the bigger difference is how he spent those 7 years. He spent it building and managing his own company with all the freedom in the world. Compare that to a senior engineer in FAANG...

Update: someone in the comments mentioned he'll likely not need to pay any federal tax on the acquisition money. That makes a huge difference and the take home gap is much larger than my initial estimate.

I'm not saying running a company is not stressful. Of course it is. Even is it's yours and no one can fire you. But it's very different when you're the one who is making the decisions and not depending on other people and politics.

I don't even like VCs and I feel like what was pulled here was pretty galling. How does someone rationalize calling up an early investor and telling them to eat their investment because...more money for me?

Of course plenty of people prefer to work at startups because the environment is more fun and you have direct influence on what ships and often direct contact with customers.

Remember when Google suddenly gave an across-the-board 10% raise to every employee to try to stave off defections to startups? Sure, there are certain jobs that are fun (depending on your interests) and of course it's easy to find "phone it in" positions at FB and Google, but most of my friends avoid FAANG or are glad they left.

Once your comp hits $X there's more to life than money.

Why do you deem it immoral for a founder to do what is best for himself within the bounds of the agreements he has made?

This kind of calling-out is common in HN and quite distasteful. Comments like this all amount to saying "X is immoral because they refused to give a charitable donation to Y". Charity is not a moral requirement and arguably it's not even a moral good.

If I agree to sell you my car for $5,000 then you show up with the money and give it to me and take the car, I don't get to change my mind later and get mad that you didn't give me more and call you immoral.

A lot of startup exits seem to take the form of you then selling the car to someone for a break even amount, who just happens to also pay you individually an extra $5,000 on the side.

Is it a good deal for you? Yes. Is it a scummy move? Yes.

One of my startups sold for about $25-40MM depending on whether you count pre- or post-earnout. The typical engineer got maybe a quarter of a percent of options on common stock. You’d think that would net out to $62.5K but we had a messy cap table. Various investments’ preferred status ate deeply into what remained for common stockholders.

Even if there were no cap table issues, the engineers wouldn’t have been happy, because they hung their hopes and dreams on a multi-hundred-million dollar exit. We experienced 90%+ engineer turnover over the next six months. (We got by just fine.)

Rule of thumb: do not join a startup for the money.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but isn't another major issue faced by early employees that the math might look good when they join the company, but further rounds dilute their stake so much that it becomes meaningless?

The problem is when people anchor their calculations about their future lottery winnings to the current float.

I try to tamp down expectations when I’m hiring by trying to sketch out a wide range of plausible scenarios (basically the Drake Equation for startups) but I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that a lot of hiring managers and HR departments set new hires up for disappointment by not throwing cold water on their very optimistic math.

But on the other hand, if you’d agreed to sell me your car at a price under what you might be able to get elsewhere—maybe because I was financially struggling and you were doing me a friendly favour—you’d probably be pretty miffed if I won the lottery and still demanded you stick to your offer…

They chose not to, which would seem to indicate they weren't miffed. Nobody forced them to do anything. It's not immoral to ask someone for an accommodation and accept it.

The investors didn't give him the money as a friendly favor to help him it out. It was an investment. Presumably they make a lot of them and understand the risks involved in doing so. If you're going to get hurt feelings whenever one of your investments doesn't pay off, you're not cut out to be an investor.

On what planet are "business decisions" not bound to moral judgements? That's one of the craziest things I've ever heard.

Frankly there's nothing distateful about recognising that in a hierarchical system such as a corporation those higher up the tree have a duty of responsibility to protect the interests of those below them.

Quite how modern capitalists have managed to convince people that this shouldn't be the case I'm not quite sure, but the results are hostile to a functioning society.

Each of those employees signed up for a salary and equity.

That equity turned out to be of very little value to them in the end, probably less than they were hoping for.

If they all got paid out anyway, they would not have learned that small equity stakes can turn out meaningless, and that exits are way less profitable for employees then founders.

Some of these employees might now go on to be founders because they learned the dangers of working hard on something in which there is no equity. In the end they might create something of massive value, which the world never would have had if they simply benefited from charity.

I think the lesson of this exit is also more valuable for all HN readers than it would've been if he had just paid out the employees, for the same reasons.

They might then go on to create something of massive value which the world never would have had if they simply did not have the financial means to do so.

Remembering the "charity" they received in helping build the business that enabled them to succeed as founders they then pass that same "charity" on to their own employees upon a successful exit, kickstarting a cycle of innovation that spreads much farther.

There's an argument that "that's not the way the world is" but the world is as compassionate or dispassionate as we make it. Personally I'd like to see it move towards a point where taking everything just because you can isn't viewed as acceptable.

It's not clear to me what you're actually suggesting.

You think that when someone takes more than they need, they deserve to be shamed? How do you determine how much one can take?

We all want the world to be more loving and compassionate, but rules and financial incentives drive productivity in our economy. If the financial incentive to start a company is reduced, there will necessarily be a cost to innovation.

Imo, the goal should be creating a system where the rules are fair and clearly outlined. The rules and incentives for employment were very clearly outlined in the employment contract these people signed. And, the founder does not seem to be the type of person who over-promises. So, I see nothing wrong here.

Shame is a pretty good motivator for encouraging people to behave in a manner deemed appropriate by society. I don't think there's an easy or definite answer for how much is appropriate. I guess the question I'd ask in return is: in the case of the woman caught on security footage dumping a whole bucket of Halloween candy into her plastic bag. Why is it that we find it appropriate to shame her and not a founder/ceo who does effectively the same thing? Why can we not apply these same rules of decency to business?

> If the financial incentive to start a company is reduced, there will necessarily be a cost to innovation.

I don't think this is necessarily true. By spreading the fruits of successful innovation more broadly you put the people who enabled that innovation in a position to use that experience to innovate further.

I'd argue that model where innovation centers around founders aiming to hit unicorn status and then retire with 'fuck you' money limits it in the sense that those once you've earned your 'fuck you' money you aren't really incentivised to innovate any further.

> The rules and incentives for employment were very clearly outlined in the employment contract these people signed.

I'm questioning whether they were fair, not in this specific case, but I'm asking more generally is our approach to employment as a society reasonable and fair.

In the case of Halloween candy, the owner of the candy is offering each person up to a few pieces of candy for free. If you take more than a few pieces, you are stealing from the candy owner. Stealing is bad because we believe in the right to private property. Stealing is, in fact, illegal. Of course, our legal system isn't set up to enforce punishment for small actions, so shame is a useful alternative form of punishment.

> Why can we not apply these same rules of decency to business?

In the case of employment, each employee is offering the business owner his/her time in exchange for a salary and equity. The expectations are crystal clear to both parties. When the business owner sells the company, taking his fair share of the purchase price (as determined by his equity stake) is NOT stealing. Nor, is it breaking any norms or expectations.

> By spreading the fruits of successful innovation more broadly you put the people who enabled that innovation in a position to use that experience to innovate further

I actually agree with this specific point for an isolated case. That is, in isolation, spreading the purchase price for a huge acquisition evenly across the employee base would probably lead to greater innovation.

However, this only makes sense in isolation. If you make it common practice to share acquisition price more evenly among employees, you destroy the financial incentive that drives much of entrepreneurship.

Startups are very risky, and without a huge payout for success at the end, the expected values just don't work out anymore. Smart engineers will be much better off applying for a traditional FANG job. In fact, this is already the case! What you're proposing would just make the math even worse. Remember, for every success case like this, there are 4 or more founders who failed. There better be a sweet reward at the end of the tunnel to keep them motivated to keep trying!

Furthermore, for small acquisitions like this, even if you were to split his 3.7M payday across his 20 employees, each person gets $18.5K. Hardly an amount that would spur innovation.

> In the case of employment, each employee is offering the business owner his/her time in exchange for a salary and equity. The expectations are crystal clear to both parties. When the business owner sells the company, taking his fair share of the purchase price (as determined by his equity stake) is NOT stealing. Nor, is it breaking any norms or expectations.

I don't think it necessarily is crystal clear. A big part of the sales pitch to employees for many startups is that your.5% will be worth X when they reach Y valuation. This isn't too bad in itself, but when it turns out that the founders can issue new/preferred stock the incentives from an employees point of view become severely misaligned.

> Furthermore, for small acquisitions like this, even if you were to split his 3.7M payday across his 20 employees, each person gets $18.5K. Hardly an amount that would spur innovation.

I agree it that it doesn't look great for smaller acquisitions. Although there are some interesting (in my opinion) alternatives to selling to private equity. In my city for example, the founders of a print shop sold the company to the existing workers. The money was paid out over a few years from the company's revenue and they sat on the board to offer some advice on the transition. It seems like a more ethical alternative in that the workers are rewarded for their part in building the company, and the new owners are less likely to asset strip and gouge existing customers to recoup their investment. It has the added bonus of not adding to the concentration of capital in a small number of holders.

I don't agree that employees deserve to be rewarded for their part in building the company above and beyond their cash and equity compensation.

> Personally I'd like to see it move towards a point where taking everything just because you can isn't viewed as acceptable.

I still am unsure what you're actually proposing we do.

I initially thought you were proposing we shame Josh for taking more than he needs. I strongly disagree with this principle for aforementioned reasons. To put it another way, Josh isn't taking "everything just because he can". He's taking what he owns, rightfully deserves, and worked and risked 7 long, hard years for.

I think I understand your reasoning but I don't agree with it. It implies that workers don't already know they're in a much worse position compared to founders/business owners when it comes to acquisitions. Generally it suggests that workers "learn" through pain until they become founders. Which might apply to some people but certainly isn't the case for everyone, let alone a good reason to treat your workers badly. I much more agree with the sibling comment by Jochim.

So you're being asked to give up $100-200k/year worth of salary by joining a startup which isn't trivial. For a tiny fraction of equity with multiple restrictions (10 year expiration, 90 day window to exercise on leaving, can't sell it, etc.).

Why early employees should get anything from an acquisition ? If they don't have stocks, they shouldn't, that's how it works, a company belongs to its shareholders, not its employees.

VC startups don’t generally pay dividends due to the cost of capital requiring reinvestment of profits (if any) to make the growth targets work.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes, a founder gets compensated significantly more than early employees. Massive shocker. If those early employees were talented enough, they’d be founders getting compensated.

I don’t know when this dramatic shift happened to Americans to believe building a successful company is mostly luck, but it’s depressing.

Shame on you, HN.

To say that’s a naive and inaccurate view of the world would be an understatement.

Whoever wants to do the first 3-6 months (or 3-6 years) without a paycheck while figuring out the problem, solution and funding gets to be the founder.

If employees were lowballed underpaid, screwed out of vested shares etc that’s different but of course the person that decides to make the company owns most of it and gets the biggest payout when it sells.

The market doesn't care about your fragile ego or low self-esteem.

Seriously, what is your point here, besides acting like a jerk? I mean, I totally agree with you, but that's why I think this thread is important. It should be a lesson to potential startup employees about how extremely lopsided the risk/return considerations are, that most equity deals are complete shit at startups, and that you should usually demand more equity if you have any negotiating power.

Indeed, the purpose of threads like this should be to convince startup employees as a whole that they're getting screwed on equity so they should demand more.

Your point is 100% right though. Early startup employees rarely understand the risk/reward. Surely none of the 10 employees at a 7 year old software company doing 1.6M a year thought they were on a rocketship.

Average software engineer gets compensated with 6 figure income for 7 years leading to a $70k cash payout. What a jerk that Josh is.

Rise, proletariat, rise.

I suspect you're also one of those people who says employees should just have negotiated better salaries but also fires them for discussing salaries.

There's a reason the market doesn't compensate every early employee at a meh SaaS company with millions.

And I think the primary reason is that many early engineers don't realize what a shitty deal they're getting. The purpose of this thread is to let them know that, so eventually startups won't be able to hire employees with such shitty terms.

Go have fun negotiating 3% equity deals and six figure salaries to write Go all day, I’ll hire a smarter engineer for half the price from Kiev or São Paulo.

Because it's true? Studies (Gompers, et. al. (2009)) indicate that a second time entrepreneur has a 30% chance of success versus a 20% for a first time one. So there's some skill in it but it mostly comes down to luck.

edit: And if you're arguing skill then clearly the skill of the early employees matter tremendously and not just the skill of the founder. So why do you think it's wrong for those employees to get more stake?

That clearly shows a vast improvement in skill. A luck doesn't improve over time. If it was "mostly" luck they would get roughly the same outcomes the second time.

And to your last point, who is saying it’s wrong for employees to get more stake? Of course it’s not wrong, but as an employee you have to negotiate that. People can’t just magically get what they feel they deserve because it would add up to way over 100%. Remember, the company exists because of the founder, doesn’t matter how much you think you contribute, because at the end of the day the company does not exist without them. If you can convince them to give you more then you should, and if you can’t you are free to start your own company. I do not see what is so unfair about this situation and I say that as instrumental #1 employee who got less than 1% for a 9-year effort building a moderately successful company. You don’t get what you deserve in life, you get what you negotiate.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

Startup outcomes are mostly luck, led by people who (have to?) believe that they aren't.

You people seem to fixate on the Facebooks of the world instead of the other 99% of businesses built on blood, sweat and tears.

Probably because most of this website sits behind a desk writing software thinking it gets sold because of magical fairies and luck, not 10000 agonizing cold calls.

And negotiation require knowledge. This thread is about being told to not discuss that knowledge publicly and to not acknowledge the real life implications of certain equity splits.

As I said in another comment, this is like saying employees should have negotiated better salaries and then firing them for discussing salaries.