Wow didn't realize it was the first...not sure if that's more depressing than exciting tbh!
Build a company to build a company, not to IPO.
As a founder do you not feel some responsibility to eventually provide liquidity to your investors and the employees that helped build your co?
But, structure the comp so that all of your early employees & people in the trenches only get paid if you IPO. Then get mad when those same employees openly wonder if and when you are going to IPO.
An exit (IPO or acquisition) is the goal of a VC backed startup. If you want to build a company to build a company, do it a different way (debt, savings, bootstrap, investors).
Terrible way of looking at it. Perhaps for investors, sure, but not for employees
Who cares? They're replaceable cogs that shouldn't expect anything but wages.
I don't think it's a terrible way to look at it, I think it's reality. I say this as a new employee of a YC startup-turned-unicorn. Yes, we have a mission as a company. I happen to believe in that mission. I also know that we have made a lot of obligations (investments, options as compensation) that make an exit important, too.
Then don’t claim options are part of total comp while denying people the ability to hold on to options when they leave the company.
Build a company to sell it to a big player and get $$$$$.
YC was founded in 2005. So yeah, it took dropbox a while but that seems to be the norm these days.