obelix

Good luck Owen. I hope one day we will know the real story of how Digg was born and created :).

Equinix went through a 32:1 reverse stock split. The founders pretty much got wiped out of its stock.

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2003/05/15/0001012870-03-002591/...

In his own words:

"Well, to clarify, I still provide consulting to Equinix. As for the money I made from that venture, suffice to say the reverse split nuked my founder's wealth for morbid. There was enough to secure my kids' college education (if they need money from me, who knows), and enough to buy me a new minivan. Anything left is for my parents who deserve every penny. I never said I had a desire to be a VC..."

http://blog.adelson.org/2006/09/im_going_to_try.html

Man, I really wish Jay Adelson gets his big pay day soon. [And Sean Parker too].

Genius.

That bottle of champagne was awesome too!

Err, post VC funding of Series A. VCs take 50% of the company, so you are talking 25% of the rest?

No please. The comments here on TC articles is very interesting. The comments on TC often are trolling and add no value.

ok, am I the only one getting a bit annoyed about 37 signals rant about their mode is the best in the world and no one elses?

They don't have to rant daily about this. For every successful Thai restaurant, I can show you 4 that failed [or more].

There are many ways to Rome, 37 signals likes to walk to Rome while others take a lot riskier route. For each his own.

After reading this rant and listening to his talk in startup school, is DHH drinking too much of his own kool-aid?

[I live in SF bay area and work in VC funded startups]

I mean life is not just 37 signals? At some point in time, he has to come out and do another startup. Is he setting himself a trap of doing a very narrow set of startups?

I have a MBP [pre penryn, btw, amazon sells it now for $1520 after rebate, which is what I bought, not refurbished].

I also have a Thinkpad T42. I use the ThinkPad for 'work' and MBP for personal coding.

I prefer the MBP for almost every aspect. It is not flawless, like the mouse acceleration with external mouse SUCKS and it does not play well in a docked situation [has its quirks].

My T42 has had 4 HD crashes in 2 years, a fan death. The Thinkpad feels very flimsy. MBP is built rock solid.

Finally having OS X [I do RoR on the MBP on *nix platforms] pretty much settles it. I used to run Ubuntu on the T42, but somehow the MBP feels complete for coding.

I wish it was that easy to get a work visa to come into US :(. As PG said in one of the essays about why Silicon Valley is special, immigration is one area where it falls flat.

Getting a work visa is next to impossible these days. You apply by Apr 1 and you MAY know in OCT if your visa was approved or not - it is a lottery system.

6 months is a lifetime for a YC startup.

IMHO, there must be another solution, like setting up a YC hub in Vancouver or something :)

My application got rejected. May be I shouldn't have said my company's name :).

Got it. Good luck with your startup. I read Jessica Livingston's 'Founders at work' and the story of many co-founders is very similar to what you said.

Yes, I was paid very well. I loved the team. And I am now at peace with the equity part as well. They earned every single bit of their equity for the risk they took.

I was responding to ojbyrne's comments that being a founder is not all hunky-dory since (s)he ended up in the same spot. I suggested at least (s)he got better equity being a founder and that is a big deal.

And I still think for a risk/reward outlook, either being a founder or playing it safe until after Series B are the two extremes and are both high in the value / risk ratio.

Isn't equity a big deal? I was employee #2 in a just funded startup. I ended up busting my ass the whole time only to realize that my equity was a fraction of what the founders took in.

IMHO, if you do a startup, do it as a founder, or join after Series B, from a pure risk-rewards perspective.