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Comment by fnord77 | Hacker News Reader

It seems to me that investors have figured out other ways of zeroing out startup employee equity, too.

I think the days of people getting rich from working for a successful startup are over.

Some data to back up your argument would really help here. The VC market has never been more founder-friendly, and the amount of VC invested is at an almost all-time high. Additionally, last year was the 3rd highest in the last 20 years for the number of IPOs. So just because you found yourself in an overly negative HN thread shouldn't skew your view that the chances of doing well are higher now than ever before (which is not meant to imply that they are high on an absolute level, but certainly in comparison to prior years).

Why does “The VC market has never been more founder-friendly” contradict the statement above that the outcomes are not so good for employees (who aren’t founders)? Perhaps the VC market became founder-friendly by transferring upside from employees to founders. Or perhaps some other mix.

A founder-friendly term sheet is not necessarily an employee-friendly term sheet, but a founder-unfriendly term sheet is 100% of the time bad for employees as well (low valuations, liquidation preferences, etc). All things being equal, as an employee you want to be in the company where the founder is laughing all the way to the bank.

for starters, there's this for IPOs (or lack of IPOs)

https://steveblank.com/2019/04/10/startup-stock-options-why-...

also, anecdotal, I've seen it happen. I was at a recent startup that got bought. I was employee 15. Somehow, the ISOs got set to $0 worth but the founders made out like bandits with their preferred stock.

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