I spend too much time browsing the web and it's hurting my productivity. There are so many interesting sites online -- hacker news, blogs, friendfeed, facebook, nytimes, etc -- and it's hard for me resist checking them on a daily basis, often multiple times a day. This stuff is really interesting and often useful, especially for an entrepreneurial hacker, and that makes it easy to justify...
There are many successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley and elsewhere who would be great startup advisors and inspiration leaders. If they decided to start YC clones I don't see why they couldn't attract great talent. They may even be more successful than YC at generating high returns on their investment. Luck plays a huge factor in startup success, after all...
Summary: don't expect the equity you get from working at a startup (unless you're a VP or an executive) to be worth much. Google-like events where many employees got rich are few and far between. If you do work for an existing company, I suggest looking at salary more than equity as a means of making money. The difference between making 120k vs 80k over 4 years is 160k -- more than you're likely to get from options, and less risky.
I like how the song keeps playing when you click around, but when you hit the back button the song gets cut off :(
A founder can also get a job in 10 minutes if the startup flops. The additional sacrifice (not necessarily risk) the founders take is living a few months without salary. This sacrifice obviously merits a higher portion of the equity than an employee -- maybe even much higher -- but as an employee you have to wonder whether the tiny equity you'll get is worth it.
I should have said that founders are exposed to greater risk in the very early days of the company, but afterwards the chance of meaningful financial payoff for employees becomes much smaller. Most startups won't be the next Google or Ebay, and I think they should take that into consideration when incenting their employees with stock options.
If the difference between a founder and an employee were, say, 5x to 10x the equity, being an employee may make sense, but if it's 100x-400x range it just makes the employee stock options look pathetic.
Here's my dilemma: there's a relatively young startup in the Valley that I think would be a great place to work. I really like the people, the technology, the product and the market. I'm sure I'd have a great time working there and that I would make lasting bonds with my colleagues.Here's the problem: equity. The offer is just too low: a fraction of a percent. For me to make decent money from...