Stripe's last round was at like $100B. There's some growth being missed out on, sure, but I'm not sure for how many people that's gonna net out to be millions.
It could be a lot. 100B makes a lot of millionaires.
Even at 10B, lots of millionaires are created unless all hires were made at high valuation. I was getting 1m/yr at 5B and I wasn’t even that early of an employee or high up. Expand that same company to 100B? Everyone would be getting millions out of it - even the lowest ranking employees.
? My point is that $100B is very high and Stripe's unlikely to see insane future growth. For the people who joined at $10B, yes, 10x their equity could be millions for them. But I think it's a lot less likely that Stripe will make it to $1T soon, so people joining now are unlikely to 10x.
This is horrible at pre-IPO unicorns like Stripe. One year vesting could cost normal employees millions if the company blows up.
Sure, the stock might not move much, or it can go down. A temporary dip means good performers are more likely to get larger refreshers to get tc up to market rate. And if pay is your driving motivation you can switch to a new job.