Hacker News Reader

what was the company valued at and what % did you own after dilution? Roughly speaking of course.

I cashed out $500k pre-tax as employee #1 at ~1.3% post-dilution but pre-IPO with the startup valued at $35M so had the company been valued at a sub-unicorny $350M or so it would have made me a millionaire. Just wondering how the % numbers compare.

View on HN

Smaller percentage of a much larger company. It’s a speculative market right now which helps. Most of these startups you’re seeing in the news are going public at $5B-$10B plus valuations. The big ones for $50B+

yeah there surely must be a fairly large floor before an IPO makes any sense. I'm pretty convinced the one I cashed out of is going to get diluted a bit more than acqui-hired by one of the big investors (who is in the same field as the startup) as the growth just doesn't look to have happened there.

I think given the overall situation I came out of it well, but it does go to show that even when you do hit the startup share lottery as we both have the actual cash outcome can vary by a significant factor, though we are both lucky to have made cash given the 99.9% of startups whose shares end up worthless.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com