(I work at YC). We do offer equity-like ownership in YC to all employees. Unfortunately we can't share the details or numbers publicly. But philosophically we think it's very important for all startups to offer generous ownership to their employees, and we follow this philosophy ourselves.

It’s a guess, but an educated one.

Let’s put it this way. If you do well as a YC admissions engineer, and you dedicate the next ten years to growing YC, what are the chances you’ll walk with less than a 0.01% share? It wouldn’t make sense for YC not to offer that. Your work will help make or break YC’s core investment decisions.

And ten years is just the maximum theoretical upper bound that I can think of — e.g. the initial role doesn’t include equity, and then you ask for equity a few years later. (That scenario seems far more implausible than them just including equity vesting in the offer. Yet even in that case, you’d still end up with your 0.01%.)

Here’s something closer to a proof: YC is a startup. Startup jobs come with equity compensation. YC’s portfolio is approaching $1T (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29064559). 1% of $1T is $10B. And 0.01% of $10B is $1M.

That’s the lower bound. YC likely has a higher stake than 1%, especially when you consider the Continuity Fund. And they’ll likely be granting more than 0.01% to a product engineer on the admissions team that can provably grow YC’s portfolio over ten years.

So the absolute lower bound is around $1M over ten years from equity alone. It’s hard to estimate the upper bound — exponential investments are counterintuitive — but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was around $10M, and I wouldn’t rule out $40M. After all, $10M over 10 years is $1m a year, and top engineers at top tech companies make ~$600k in total comp. so $10M is just keeping pace with Google, and $40M is keeping pace with YC’s tremendous growth.

YC Is not a startup, it's an investment fund. And the admissions team is staff. I find it extremely unlikely that they're handing out any equity to staff that isn't bringing in new business and revenue.

YC is a startup, and I’m willing to die on this hill.

If YC stops considering themselves a startup in 50 years, pg will be turning in his grave. It would mean there’s room for a competitor to dethrone YC, just like any other big company.

And startup jobs come with equity. That’s one of the biggest incentives to work for a startup. Otherwise the smart, capable hackers would quietly focus on getting a top job at Google.

All else being equal, there’s no reason to work as hard as you can for $10M when you can get it by coasting for two decades at a big company. And YC staff works hard.

What make YC different from other accelerators and VCs that they have to offer equity (or carry)? In investment firms that is typically reserved for general partners because it makes investments at it's core, unlike a tech startup with tech as a core business