Applied another way, everyone in a given class of YC should share a bit of ownership with everyone else in their YC class, and then everyone of them is likely to end up a millionare.
I still wish that YC would provide some more concrete figures, and ideally include separate figures for first employees as well as founders.
From link: “Most of the returns have gone to a tiny minority of super-successes. The founders of AirBnB, Dropbox and Stripe are worth about US$7 billion, about 80% of all founders’ equity, although they account for 0.5% of the companies. Outside of the most successful companies, it was still possible to earn significant returns. 12% of companies from the first five years of Y Combinator are now worth US$40 million or more, and a further 10% have sold for US$5-40 million. The remainder probably earned little more than their (low) salaries.”.
Imagine there is a lottery where for every 10 million tickets you buy you get one that is giving you 20 millions back.
No brainer, right? Except if you don’t have the 10 million to spare, buying lottery tickets instead of food doesn’t make sense.
Labor/job is your single lottery ticket.
Investors can afford to buy all tickets to make sure they win.