This is a great narrative! It just doesn’t work out for most people.

I would say that if you want to hit a lotto ticket, this is your best route. Increased variance is your friend when you are at the downside and it’s all uphill.

But if you want to get rich, and you are the average HN reader, it’s better to bet on the typical case.

(That said, if you have a list of companies that meet your current criteria, I would love to know! I know a lot of faang engineers who are bored and would love a shot at millions.)

You can get rich winning the lottery. Both are purely chance.

How do you get RSUs if the company hasn't IPOed?

I thought that RSUs were limited to public companies (since they are essentially grants of stock, not options).

Companies typically switch to RSUs from option as they get closer to the IPO. Conversely if a company is offering RSUs then it’s a strong signal that they will go public within 18-24 months and also that the options have appreciated as much as they could as evaluated by private investors and so subsequent stock appreciation could only happen by public investors. Exceptions exist but it’s a good heuristic.

Awesome, thanks! TIL.

You can get RSUs and RSAs from a private company, it's just often undesirable because you pay income tax on the valuation of the shares vested but you can't sell your shares until a liquidity event or IPO.

Some employers will structure these as double trigger RSUs that do not vest until a date passes + a liquidity event occurs to avoid this.

I had no idea that you can get RSUs this way. Does anyone have any suggestions on what to search for related to this?

Part of why I wanted to be a contractor was precisely because I didn’t want to play the startup lottery. But RSUs would give an alternative.

They’re extremely common at larger venture funded companies that in theory are closer to IPO.

“Double trigger” seems to be the common term per a quick online search