

Wall Street vs Silicon Valley - zubinmehta
http://blog.zlemma.com/2014/02/04/wall-street-vs-silicon-valley/

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elefont2
How many people actually have a net worth > $30 million due to stock options
from a Silicon Valley startup? Assuming a billion dollar exit, you would need
3% equity (post dilution) to end up with that net worth, or 5% if you want
that net worth after-taxes. The average startup is going to have maybe 2-5
people with that level of equity. There aren't that many billion dollar exits,
so my gut is that the total number across all startups in the last 5 years
isn't going to be more than about 1000.

I would guess the number of wall street traders with a net worth > $30 million
would be higher.

Does anyone know of any real statistics on that?

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cover_drive
Hard to get any stats on this, but it would be indeed interesting to see. In
the valley, there are also quite a few 9-digit exits with 2-digit equity
percentages. My gut is that in today's scenario, the Silicon valley count
would be higher.

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pratikpoddar
Interesting views. Just to add:

Early on in your career, you get "transferable" skills in both the industries.
So, shifting from one industry to another cannot be very costly. So, one can
always decide for one self.

But shifting also requires a change in mindset. Wall Street is a lot of
money/bonus talk. Silicon valley would not like people who think only about
money every day. Silicon valley is less shit work. Wall Street would not want
people who do not smell the coffee well. So, the attitude should definitely be
checked.

My 2 cents.

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cover_drive
Yes - the personality element is indeed very important. Wall Street definitely
requires a thicker skin. But then Silicon valley cushions people too much.

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brosephius
the depiction of "wall street jobs" isn't very accurate...most people are not
wearing many "hats", and quantitative modelers certainly aren't getting coffee
for execs. outside of a small trading firm, you're likely to have a specific
role as a programmer, quant, or trader. making 500k after a few years is very
unlikely, and probably involves as much luck and being in the right place at
the right time with the right people as startup options paying off.

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cover_drive
things are definitely changing in the post-2008 world. Much of what I wrote is
colored by my own experience at Goldman 1998-2008. I must say that even today,
on the Goldman/Morgan trading desks, people do wear multiple hats and junior
traders still get coffee. And the talented ones still ramp up to $1M+ pretty
quickly.

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dhiraj026
Here is some interesting stuff that only exist in valley :)

[http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/23-things-that-
could-...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/23-things-that-could-only-
exist-in-silicon-valley?bftw=)

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philrapo
I've always thought the expected value on wall street seems way better.
(probability * payout) since the equity in most startups ends up being worth
zero.

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nikhilvij
Would like to add another point, about how important is a company's
vision/mission to you.

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cover_drive
It will be interesting to see how this tussle plays out in the next 5 years.

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saurabh_math
It doesn't cover one important aspect though i.e. learning; I think one stops
or is forced to stop real learning. Also stress levels is quite high at wall
streets compared to valley.

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srakshe
Nice Read.

