

Results: We surveyed 200+ startup founders to find out how much money they have - keraz
http://thehustle.co/how-much-money-do-startup-founders-have

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mgav
I think there's a great opportunity for investors to sell "put" options* to
startup founders.

*In exchange for "premium" (payment could be made in shares at a future date), person gets the right (but not the obligation) to sell their stock at a fixed price over a specified period of time.

If the value goes up, you lose the premium but keep all your other shares. If
the value goes down, exercise the option and sell at the agreed-upon price.

CAUTIONS: (1) clear this with your attorney and tax accountant; (2) if the
writer of this option goes bankrupt and your shares plummet in value, you're
probably out of luck.

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luckydude
The big ones are all in stock and that has some issues:

There will be tax event when they cash out. You'd be surprised how many people
take short term capital gains instead of long term. The reason for that is
usually uncertainty about the stock. If it costs you $100K to exercise your
options you are going to be reluctant to do that until you can sell. And then
you have to wait a year for the long term capital gains tax rate and what if
the stock crashes?

tl;dr: $50M in stock is probably around $25M in cash.

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caffeinewriter
One of the most interesting things about this, to me at least, is while the
median was on the lower end, the upper echelon of respondents were high enough
to significantly skew the mean upwards significantly.

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PhrosTT
How does Riley accrue 560k in credit card debt?

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samp615
Yeah that's pretty wild. The survey actually include student loans though as
well, but it's still crazy.

