shon

In my mind, startups are less like the lottery and more like blackjack. You are gambling either way (as with any investment) but, with blackjack and startups you can optimize.

Unlike the lottery, knowledge and skill play a role here.

Of course I have seen people lose. I've personally lost on options as well. I didn't make the assertion that you can't lose. With options, you are betting that the company will not fail and that it will become much more valuable. Both are statistically unlikely. You are also betting that you won't leave or be otherwise eliminated before the exit.

Mainly I'm framing this in comparison to additional salary which is also unlikely to generate significant wealth unless you are very good or very lucky (Probobally both) at managing your money.

It's interesting to see the popular response to this thread being one where people think employees are better off with salary over options.

This seems crazy to me as I have watched many close friends cash out options from companies including Google, Yelp, Apple and Pandora and buy houses (some with cash), start companies, become investors and/or take long sabbaticals with the proceeds from their options. With salary there is a clear upper bound and the tax on W2 income is simply the worst. I would say that at least in the Bay Area, options are a good bet and much better bet based on what I've seen.

Startups are always a gamble for everyone involved. But outside of the financial industry, where 6 and 7 figure cash bonuses are common, I think options are superior to other forms of compensation if you're trying to optimize for gaining a "life changing amount of money" in less than say 10 years. High salary could only compare if you are very good at minimizing tax and maximizing the money making potential of your salary though investments (requiring additional work). But if you're going to have to invest anyway, why not work for a company you believe in and have a chance at influencing the company's success as well as your own?

We will be live streaming this event as well if you can't make it to NYC. Streaming info will be released day of event. Video from past events here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjeM1xxYb_37bZfyparLS3Q

FYI, this is my event.

FYI: This is my event. Free content / shameless plug.

EXPANDED.IO is hiring software engineers in Phoenix (yes, Phoenix) and Devops (remote or PHX). Stack is Python with a dash of everything. Apply at engjobs@expanded.io.

Textfiles.com is awesome. It's one of Jason Scott's first creations. He's also involved in Archive.org's browser-playable DOS game archive at https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games

And an all around good egg.

Shameless tangential plug: Nicolas Vasilache from The Facebook AI Research group (Yann LeCun's team) is speaking next month at http://MLconf.com in NYC. We will be livestreaming the event for free. Watch @mlconf on 3/27 for the livestream link. If you would like to attend in person use discount code MLML for a discount.

*FULL DISCLOSURE: This is my event

Good luck with it guys. There was a site long ago called clearstation which was bought by Etrade and killed. It offered similar features (charting, profiles, following, tracking, discussion, etc.), they built a great community of traders which was educational and enjoyable to participate in. It's hard to build something good. Keep pushing and good luck.

Yes, my app, TEXT BOMB was removed. During its short time online, we were selling a copy every 6 minutes. That lasted for about 4 days. It was hard to get specific information as to why it was removed. Google pointed us to TOS several times.

We were sad it was removed and Google was not very specific nor responsive to my inquiries. But in truth we knew why it did not last. TEXT BOMB was simply too awesome, too powerful and too annoying to last. It would send up to 1 million SMS messages to one or multiple targets at a preset time. An option called Super Annoy Mode allowed the texts to be spaced out using a random interval with a settable max delay. It was devious. It was dangerous.

Here's one of the ads I made for it: http://youtu.be/6a0QzS0PqBY

RIP TEXT BOMB.

In my experience, Google had good reason. If you feel they do not, keep fighting. Good luck.

Check mlconf.com on Friday. The default will be Ustream here: http://www.ustream.tv/search?q=mlconf

We'll also post that and any updates to the main site on Friday.

Google, Twitter, Netflix, Yelp, Pandora and more are speaking on Deep Learning and RecSys this Friday at MLconf in San Francisco. We're trying to get a streaming solution going as well for those who can't make it. http://mlconf.com

DISCLAIMER: This is my event

Thanks for the feedback all. Checked them out, looks like seeking alpha is close to what I want.

Chandler, AZ. - HiringSolved is hiring!

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