But before this bubble, as a bootstrapped startup one could beat Google by offering very early stage employees an attractive mix of cash and a lot of stock: Google's stock options are not that attractive since it has gone public. Now on paper you cannot beat the offerings of the unicorns, since they also offer cash and stock options. From experience, the existence of unicorns made the life for a bootstrapped startup in San Francisco very difficult. In our office building in SF, we had probably about 6 bootstrapped companies in 2012, now only mine is left: the other 5 moved elsewhere (most are still open). The smaller offices were joined and the companies were replaced by the larger funded ones. Also the building was bought by a more greedy landlord.
Google's stock is very attractive. employees are generally paid in actual stock, and not options. there's a huge difference between options, and stock.
options in a startup, especially since ~95% of startups fail, are generally worthless.
I am talking about very early employees. What is the typical dollar amount in RSUs or stock a new engineer after MEng is getting in Google?
>$100k over a few years at the initial date of the grant. You can roll the dice all you want on startup options or take RSUs with actual value
They may be the leaders, but they have to compete so fiercely because VC money is employing a lot of engineers and programmers. If that VC money stops, there will be an oversupply of labor. And prices will fall.
I wouldn't say an oversupply of labour, but much less competition for the currrent supply, for sure.