Should You Sell Your Company?
bhorowitz.com
bhorowitz.com
I fundamentally believe that companies should be created to bring like minded people together and solve problems they find interesting. Along with that founders should make it a responsibility to create wealth for all employees. Imagine what it would mean, when you joined a company to be 100% sure it will pay off your mortgage in 5 years.
Unfortunately in a reasonably efficient market that's fundamentally impossible, in the same way as perpetual motion machines are impossible. The reason why employees get equity in the first place is because they undertake risk - opportunity cost because of lower salary, lack of job security, etc. If employees knew that the startup will pay off their mortgage with 100% certainty, everyone else would know too. That means the startup's valuation would skyrocket, cheap capital would become trivially obtainable, and all of the risk associated with joining a company would go away. This is essentially exactly equivalent to joining a large, stable company today.
It sounds nice, but unfortunately the economics don't work out.
Making $100mm vs. $50mm as a successful founder, but enduring 2-3 years of relatively higher unhappiness, might be a reasonable choice for some people. I really wouldn't want to see every late-hire engineer making $200k vs. $100k from options but needing to relocate, find a new job ASAP, etc.