I’ve worked for 5 startups now and my equity payout has been 0, 0, 0, 0, and now I stand I make low 7 figures from the equity on this last company (publicly traded now).
During those startups the following happened: - I saw my nieces and nephews so little they forgot my name. They were young, sure, but it still stung when they look at you like a stranger
- Messed up a 8+ year relationship with my significant other and we haven’t talked in years
- Let my student debt pile up to take on more equity than salary (dumbass idea for the record)
- Lost friends along the way because I could never do anything
- Missed many family/friends birthdays as I was working
- Worked 80 hour weeks for a long time
What did I feel after I saw my equity/stock rise to above 7 figures? Stupidity. I gave up a lot on my journey and money can’t get it back, in fact, the money I stand to earn doesn’t enable me to do much more than what my salary already does. I can travel, eat well, have luxury goods if I want (I’m not that type of person but anyways), and so forth.
My point being that this was a.) self-inflicted and b.) not worth the combined opportunity cost of all of those years.
So for every “friend” who made lots of money at Uber or other places, there’s a story like me or a story where someone’s never made anything from equity because profitable exits are fucking hard
The article is basically a rehash of my experience in a start up as the first engineer for a technical founder. I spent the next 6 years growing the company, my skills, and my experiences. I was constantly provided more salary and stock options until I had so many options I could not reasonably exercise them without taking on massive risk. I had to consistently request the status of the option pool to even know what percentage I was granted. When I left the company I effectively had 3 months (Nov 2019 - Feb 2020) to make a decision. I'm personally glad I was conservative and did not exercise them given the outcome of COVID in the US.
I don't regret taking that job at all as it helped me become a very skilled technology professional despite not having a prestigious educational background. It opened new doors which would have otherwise been closed until I had an equal opportunity to prove myself at scale. I do regret the extra hours worked which led to burn out and health issues as well as not being more bullish on salary until later in my career.
Isn't that a "never need to work again" situation though?
eg, you've effectively freed up your future to put time into whatever you want?
(Obviously as your raise the definition of "low 7 figures" this can change dramatically)
I don't think that I would call that "never need to work again" money. It's between 10 and 30 years of my salary.
A good lump sum to stash in the retirement fund. Maybe retire at 55 instead of 65, but definitely not "never need to work again" money.
If you have 2 million, you can conservatively (meaning a low 3% - 4% withdrawal rate) take out 60k to 80k a year in perpetuity. Can you live on 60k - 80k a year? Consider you'll be paying a lot less in taxes since it's all capital gains. If your normal salary was 100k ish, you probably can.
If I ever finish work, it's going to be a complete reboot of me anyway.
After taxes and everything, it’s not “enough” to never need to work again but yes, I would say I’m very fortunate to not have money as the concern as long as I’m not irresponsible with it.
The point was more that it easily could’ve been another $0 and in theory, the company could fail taking that $1-3M down considerably.
The salary most HNers make is way above the median and is enough to live a very comfortable life. I honestly can’t tell you if the money was worth the personal pain of the last 10 or so years, truly I don’t think it is.