
Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret - zg
http://www.kernelmag.com/comment/opinion/1861/entrepreneurships-dirty-little-secret/
======
ams6110
Let's rewrite this: _I work with entrepreneurs and have a pretty good window
into their world. What I am seeing is too many poorly-skilled young people
lacking business acumen and trying their hand at starting their own business,
when their time could be much better spent on other pursuits such as learning
to code._

I work with developers and have a pretty good window into their world. What I
am seeing is too many poorly-skilled young people lacking developer acumen and
trying their hand at writing their own code, when their time could be much
better spent on other pursuits such as learning a business.

See, it's just as valid either way, in other words it's not specific to
entrepreneurship at all. You learn something--whether it's coding or running a
business or playing a sport or anything else--by trying and failing,
evaluating, and trying again.

------
sosuke
First comment on the article is excellent, by Mike Conte CEO & Founder at
Stealth Startup

 _"A banker thinks entrepreneurs should have to take a test first, for the
safety of the economy? That's rich. There is no better or faster way for
entrepreneurs to learn than to try. Yep lots fail. And some try again and
others go to work for other business, together with their hard-won experience
and probably do a better job than they would otherwise."_

------
DanielBMarkham
_"...We’re all failing this generation of entrepreneurs by not being tough on
them....we need to stop encouraging entrepreneurship without acknowledging the
extremely long odds of success, the numerous downsides..."_

I completely agree with the thrust of this article. My only qualm is that the
word "entrepreneur" is too broad.

Let's put it this way. Need money? Go downtown and go door-to-door looking to
help people. Maybe you can clean their office, or walk their dog, make a
website, or cook a hamburger for somebody. But if you have some reasonable
amount of skill and are willing to physically go out and meet people and adapt
to what you hear, I can guarantee you that you are going to make money. It
probably won't be in the way you imagined, but it'll work.

This is the basis of entrepreneurialism: making something people want. Get out
there and find what people want. Match your abilities up to that. It's a
wonderful thing.

The problem comes when we try to add any qualifiers at all to this. What this
author is talking about is internet or technology startups. That's a whole
nother can of worms. It's like going downtown and looking for work as an
accountant. Yes, it might work, if you are already an accountant and your town
has a lot of accounting firms. But the odds suddenly increase a hell of a lot.

The problem I see with many recent college grads and many startup fans is the
belief that they already know _what kind_ of entrepreneur they are going to
be. Once you start qualifying things, you are killing your odds. Business is a
conversation, not a soliloquy. We've got a lot of people terribly dedicated to
some long-shot, 1-in-50 chance venture. That's not a startup. That's gambling.

But I completely agree that for purposes of this article, we have let a lot of
people down. We deserve to give them a much more realistic view of how things
work instead of spending so much time on Facebook, Google, and Instagram.
We're making this into some kind of perverse lottery, and that's not good for
anybody. Just don't use such a broad term as startup and then make some
sweeping case that "people just aren't cut out for it" Yes, most people aren't
cut out for some specific description of a business venture. But I'd argue
that just about anybody can sell apples on the street corner. This isn't an
intelligence thing, this is an engagement thing. If anything, you can be _too
smart_ for startups.

~~~
padobson
Big +1 from me.

Entrepreneurship is not complicated nor is it necessarily difficult to
execute. This article is way too specific on what it is (a technology startup
game that requires outside investment for success).

The alternative to entrepreneurship is to work for someone else. When you work
for someone else, it's not mentioned enough that your boss is making more
money off of you than he's paying you. If you can offer the same service
directly to your customer, whether you're selling hot dogs or bottled water or
cruise missiles, then you will absolutely make more money and live a more
independent lifestyle.

There are far far more entrepreneurs out there making $60k a year than there
are entrepreneurs working at startups that will soon become worthless. Those
exact same entrepreneurs probably don't have a marketable skill that would
make them any more than $30k working for someone else. But the market loves it
when you assume some level of risk, and the risk isn't nearly as high as this
article or some of the comments in this thread seem to imply.

------
dkrich
Without finishing the article, or knowing anything about the author, I knew
that this couldn't be somebody who has ever tried his hand at starting a
business.

The fact that he repeatedly quotes Eric Ries and Steve Blank makes this
article a little hilarious to me as well. I for one am only really interested
in hearing stories from actual entrepreneurs who have tried and failed or
tried and succeeded. Both are equally interesting to me. Academics who have
spent their life in office jobs or espousing theories and quotes about how
difficult it is do not interest me. Anybody can write about how hard something
is from a hundred miles off the ground, but unless you have actually tried,
you don't know what you are talking about. This applies to pretty much
anything.

It also seems strange to me that he suggests hopeful entrepreneurs should jump
from running a business to something useful, like, learning to code. How
original. I have been coding half my life. Coding is a means to an end. It
solves some particular problems in one particular way. It is not an end-all
be-all panacea that picks you up from poverty and moves you into the upper
class. Despite what many people think, particularly in the Silicon Valley
startup world, knowing how to code is not required to start a business. It is
a trade, just like construction, or plumbing, or welding. The only difference
is that coding tools are basically free and relatively new. But the law of
supply and demand still governs which products succeed.

~~~
evanwillms
Both Eric Ries and Steve Blank are actual entrepreneurs who have tried on
multiple occasions and have both success and failure in their experience.

Eric Ries founded CatalystRecruiting as an undergrad, worked as an engineer
for a few years, and then co-founded and was CTO of IMVU, which had a string
of internal failures followed by perseverance and success. His experience
there seems to have formed the core of the Lean Startup book.

Straight from Steven Blank's personal bio: "After 21 years in 8 high
technology companies, I retired in 1999. I co-founded my last company,
E.piphany, in my living room in 1996. My other startups include two
semiconductor companies, Zilog and MIPS Computers, a workstation company
Convergent Technologies, a consulting stint for a graphics hardware/software
spinout Pixar, a supercomputer firm, Ardent, a computer peripheral supplier,
SuperMac, a military intelligence systems supplier, ESL and a video game
company, Rocket Science Games. Total score: two large craters (Rocket Science
and Ardent), one dot.com bubble home run (E.piphany) and several base hits."

Don't write somebody off as an academic just because they've written a book.

~~~
dkrich
Who said I wrote them off? I am writing off the author of this article. This
article is about 5% substance, 30% quotes from other people, and the rest is a
mixture of vague personal opinions and forewarnings about the realities of the
odds against entrepreneurs from a guy who, from what I can tell, has never had
the guts to start a business.

I personally don't find much value in Eric Ries advice and think he
capitalized on the brand value of his education and a couple of minor business
successes to write a highly successful and oft-cited book. I feel the same way
about Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki, and Tim Ferris. More power to them for
building their personal brands and book sales through the insecurity of people
just starting out, but I wouldn't spend too much time studying their
prescriptions for success, because in reality, there is no such thing.

My point in the original post was that any author spending so much time citing
startup gurus can't himself know too much about what he is talking about. It
is like writing about new technology by reblogging Engadget articles.

~~~
AznHisoka
I agree. Seth Godin made Squidoo, which is considered to be a content farm.
Guy Kawasaki.. what has he even made lately? AllTop? Both of them are examples
of good personal branding, but not entrepreneurs you want to imitate.

------
jonnathanson
Even beyond this core point (not everyone is cut out for entrpreneurship) lies
a more important point: society doesn't _need_ everyone to be an entrepreneur.
If we assume that there are roughly 150 million Americans in the workforce,
we're _not_ better off with 150 million startups than we are with, say, 1
million startups and 149 million workers. We're not even better off with a
substantially larger ratio of small to large businesses than what we have
today. An economy too fragmented among millions and millions of small
businesses is inherently inefficient and internationally uncompetitive.

We need startups, and we need entrepreneurs, but the idea that everyone's an
entrepreneur is an unproductive fantasy. We need to be empowering those cut
out for entrepreneurship to succeed -- but we shouldn't be courting widespread
economic inefficiency by encouraging or, even subsidizing, everyone to chase
pipedreams.

~~~
ams6110
No worries, most people don't want to be entrepreneurs.

~~~
billpatrianakos
You said a lot with very few words. There are entrepreneurs and what people
think an entrepreneur is. Most people do want to be entrepreneurs except they
want to be the second, unrealistic kind. You know, the kind that makes their
own hours, works in their pajamas, does a lot of delegating but not much real
work, and takes a lot of vacations on Yachts in the Pacific. People want to do
that. Everyone wants to do that.

Too bad most who try will find out that real entrepreneurship isn't all
Yachts, caviar, and a totally flexible schedule. It's harder than being an
employee, especially at first.

~~~
wpietri
Yep! The family saying is that the freedom of entrepreneurship is that you can
work any 70 hours a week you want.

------
ScottBurson
I started a business, with three cofounders, right out of college. The year
was 1980, and we had all just graduated from MIT. Here are some things I wish
we had known:

() A market is defined by people's understanding of the _function_ of a
product.

() Most markets are winner-take-all. Sometimes two or three products can
coexist in the same space for some reason, but usually not.

() So to be successful, you should seek to define a market niche you can own.
You get to pick what that is, but of course you don't know until you try
whether it's large enough to sustain your business.

() Also, you will need to communicate the definition of your niche to the
market. This may be easy or hard. If you're in a crowded space, for example,
or if (as happened to us) the space started out fairly open but then better-
funded competitors showed up, you may need to redefine your niche as a
specific smaller part of what is hopefully now a larger market. This is called
"product differentiation".

() The better you understand the needs of your target market, the better you
will be able to understand the potential functions for which your product can
be used. This will help you in both choosing a niche and in communicating your
definition of that niche to the market.

I could go on, but I think that's a decent summary of the basics. Of course,
there's a lot more to marketing if you really get into it (chasm phenomena
etc.), but I think if we had just understood that much, we might have been a
lot more successful.

------
srconstantin
I'm so relieved to hear this from someone else.

About two years ago I read an article by Peter Thiel and it was kind of my
"ask what you can do for your country" moment. That was when I realized that I
didn't want to be an academic, that I believed people who built technology in
the private sector were actually doing more good in the world. So I thought "I
want to be an entrepreneur."

I've had to scale back a little as I did a couple of start-ups and learned how
ignorant I was. I'm not ready to be CEO of anything. I'm not even sure I want
to be; I want to write algorithms more than I want to manage a company.
Honestly, right now, I want to work with people smarter than I am, and get
better at what I do.

I'm done with the notion that you should always start a company right away in
your early twenties, that you shouldn't have to take any time to pay your dues
or build mastery. I don't want to work at a silly, unsuccessful start-up just
for the sake of "being an entrepreneur." I want to get as good as I can at
what I do. I want to work somewhere where I'm not the only one who's heard of
an inner product. I want to do something _substantive_ , and I'd rather do
something substantive at 35 than something crappy at 23.

------
imgabe
Who's supposed to be the gatekeeper for who should be an entrepreneur and who
shouldn't? Doesn't the market already do that anyway?

~~~
krschultz
Yes. But the author makes his living in the market and is sick of having to go
through the effort of determining where to invest his money. He'd like a nice
gatekeeper to kick all the ones who will fail out so every single investment
makes him more money for less effort.

~~~
randomdata
Why doesn't he just give potential investments his test? It is of no
consequence to him if the ones who fail continue on and ultimately fail in
their business, he will have only invested in those who are guaranteed winners
anyway.

------
brooks777
I understand all too well the perils of starting your own company. But I think
this article focuses on the wrong reasons why someone should start a business.
Entrepreneurs don't think to themselves "gee, I need to be the solution to
world's current employment woes."

We just get really excited about an idea, and we run with it. We're passionate
about something, and it doesn't matter what the end result is yet. We are
compelled by everything in us to do this one thing and see what happens. And
it doesn't need to be explained, justified, scale, make business sense, or any
of these things... especially not at the beginning. Life is an experiment. We
live that through our ideas, projects, and love to put it out there and get
feedback, and then just keep going. We want to create things, build things,
try something new, tackle interesting problems... Making money is never the
primary focus. I understand that this is not necessarily practical, rational,
and responsible. But it's the kind of thinking that spawned most great
enterprises.

We have to be fearless. We have to ask dumb questions. I can't stand "smart"
people that make entrepreneurs feel dumb for asking dumb questions. There are
no dumb questions. If that person keeps learning, and pursues what they want,
then they'll someday get somewhere. We're optimistic and somewhat blind, and
thank God because otherwise we'd never get started and never do anything
interesting.

Some of the most successful people have little education, and kinda stumble
into their fortune because of some of the reasons above. And this makes those
who are smart, educated, and experienced upset because they feel entitled,
that they've earned it above those who "don't know what they're doing."

I don't know what I'm doing, and I want to keep it that way. It can be an
advantage and lead to new ways of seeing the world. A world that maybe one of
my half-baked ideas that I throw together without any plan might someday
change.

------
Achshar
>We need to discourage those who aren’t fit to start their own business.

I request you to define "fit". How can one know if one is "fit". The line is
very blurry I believe, unless there is something that I am missing here.

Not unlike many others here, I aspire to be an entrepreneur too. But after
reading this article I am left undecided on what side I "fit" in. Am I not
supposed to be doing this? How am I (or others like me) supposed to know? It
would really help if there were some questions that we could answer. I
understand the answer will not always be yes/no but I have to start somewhere.

The author's main point seems to be that not everyone realizes that chances of
success is very _very_ small. But I know that, and I understand that very
well. So where does that leave me?

One moment I am absolutely sure I know what I have to do, then I read some
article like this and it makes me think. The more I think, the more likely I
am to be confused.

~~~
nirvana
Here's one objective way to measure fit: If you let a half assed article from
someone who (I suspect) has never started a business dissuade you from being
an entrepreneur, then you don't fit.

The skill to have (and it is easy for me, but it may not be for everyone) is
to know what's right and what you're going to do, while at the same time
separating the signal from the noise out there and integrating what the signal
tells you about the market into your business.

There are a surprising number of people who think their mission in life is to
"help" entrepreneurs... who think that their opinions are helpful independant
of whether they are or not.

IF you remain unsure, there's nothing wrong with working for others (or
working for someone else's startup) and doing your own thing on the side. Side
projects can be very educational-- I learned as much from my side projects as
I did from my day jobs working for startups.

You don't have to start off on your own right now, if you feel you're not
ready.

Also, I don't think the chances of success for starting _business_ are very
small. I think they are probably better than 50/50. (Of the dozens of
businesses I've started in my life, nearly all have been profitable.) People
think a "startup" is this magical thing that is a "Scalable business", but
most of the businesses I've started in my side projects have been scalable as
well.

Moving to the bay area and starting a web site that has no real business model
other than "sell advertising once we get to 50 million users" and high real
costs making it dependent on external financing, on the other hand, is an
approach that has very, very small chances.

I think the real problem is that this is the only model people seem to think
exists.

~~~
Achshar
What you say makes sense but I just wanted to point out that i never said that
I question my decision. I said "The more I think, the more likely I am to be
confused". But other than that, I would like if you appreciate that it is not
the easiest thing to tell the noise from the signal when you are new. Everyone
seems to be right in their place and have valid points. I believe it takes
experience.

------
alan_cx
The sense I have coming from the UK is that the US tolerates start up failures
far better than we do. If you try in the US and fail, the general vibe seems
to be one of, "Ok, it went wrong, brush your self down and try again, and make
sure you learned the lessons". In the UK, its more like, "you evil failure,
you conned every one and we will bankrupt you and stop you trying again".

So, from a UK POV, the caution this article seems to urge, seems more
applicable to the UK than the US.

I highlight this because I believe failure is as useful as success, I think
there is possibly more to learn from a failure. I almost feel like a few
failures are essential so that lessons can be learned, and stronger new start
ups emerge with stronger founders. I believe the US is way better at this than
the UK, and possibly Europe.

Or perhaps I have too a rosier view of the US in this respect? Dunno.

------
aniijbod
This article is based on the current rose-tinted view of employment as 'the
safe option' which says 'if you don't want to be a founder or co-founder of a
startup, don't worry, with the right skills there'll always be a nice safe,
steady job for you with one of those big reliable old operations who are all
so great at innovation that they'll always be around'. Alan, you're right,
entrepreneurship does have a dirty little secret: failure. But unlike big
established employers, a determined serial startup founder can even be
bankrupt and still get together with a mate and start another. Failure is good
for the fledgling entrepreneur, because it releases the hardest-won experience
back into the startup ecosystem. It's the big guys whose failures will leave
employees with skills which will be less likely to be transferable in any
future downturn. The days when the likelihood of failure was a good excuse for
not starting a startup were over the moment that it became possible to try it
at zero cost, before or after getting a job, or even being on the dole. Get
out there. Do a startup. Fail fast, fail cheap, get the bug, pass it on, share
what you learn. If you succeed, become an Angel. If you don’t, become a
mentor. Failed first-timers who retain enthusiasm and commitment can make
inspiring mentors.

------
wpietri
I agree that entrepreneurship is challenging, but I think the tone of this
article is bunk.

We should absolutely be brutal and frank in our questioning. That's because
the world will be even tougher on their ideas once they start taking action.
They need to be ready for that, and they will benefit by thinking things
through a bit.

But we should never pour cold water on people's enthusiasm. We should never
tell people their idea won't work. We should never butt in to tell them how
they should be spending their time.

Enthusiasm is precious, and none of us has a crystal ball. Making mistakes is
an important part of life. By all means we should help people avoid dumb
mistakes, but only because we want them to be making interesting ones.

------
AznHisoka
I think these things have to be experienced by trying. It's one of those
cognitive biases we have - we always think other people are going to fail, not
us. So it can't be intellectually internalized, it can only be learned through
experience.

------
markest1973
"we need to push back on the growing belief that they can eschew writing a
business plan when they are too busy 'doing'"

How many startups change their business model when they realize something is
not working? Most?

I suppose the only valid thing coming from a business plan is the recognition
that you're not hitting your goals, you're running out of runway, and you
better adjust course.

Other than that, guessing what your revenue will be 3 years from now and how
many employees you'll need to satisfy those mythical customers seems to me to
be a colossal waste of time when you could be busy "doing."

~~~
wpietri
I think it depends a lot on your kind of business.

For the kind of internet businesses VCs like, business plans were always BS.
That's because the pivoting and the hockey-stick growth curves make mush out
of them.

But I've watched friends start more normal businesses: 1-10 person service or
manufacturing businesses. For them the business plan has been really useful in
that it has forced them to think through the details. And in particular, made
them work out the math.

That math is useless if you're planning on making the next Google; either
you'll be buried in money or you'll be done. But margins on real-world
businesses are modest, so it's really worth thinking through whether you can
turn a profit.

~~~
markest1973
That's true. My post assumed a software-centric view of the world, where costs
are very low and all that matters is a great product.

In most other businesses, it would be very important to know how many widgets
you need to sell at what price to float the loan payments for production or to
know all your overhead costs before taking on a consulting/service contract.
Neither of those require long range planning, though, which I think are still
guesses. The immediate budget and plan, however, is important.

------
tomjen3
Writing a business plan? Cash-flow management?

We all know what happens to a plan when it sees the light of day.

As for cash-flow management, my parents called it spend less than you earn if
you want to stay in business. But that is just we.

------
tomjen3
>Similarly, we need to stop encouraging entrepreneurship without acknowledging
the extremely long odds of success, the numerous downsides and the fact that
many of today’s entrepreneurs are tomorrow’s social welfare recipients.

Yeah for a few months. The kind of people who are going to start their own
company are not the kind of welfare recipients we should care about (inner
city kids and white trash) -- they are those for whom welfare was created, as
temporary safety net.

------
JoeAltmaier
A business is a company formed to search for a scalable revenue model? Ok,
that's from a businessman's point of view.

It's also formed to search for a product that resonates with the market. And
to search for a capable team. And to satisfy a need by the founders to create
something meaningful.

Remove Any of those, and you don't succeed. None are the 'true meaning' of
entrepreneurship.

------
sbierwagen
Anyone have the text of the FT article he links to? It points at a paywall for
me.

~~~
alecco
If you register (just your email address) the FT gives you 20 articles free
per month. Good enough for me.

------
nirvana
One thing I see is a lot of people stressing about starting a company when
they are in college or just out of college.

If you're struck dead by the idea for a business in college and is so
compelling the idea of working for someone else is absolutely laughable-- then
by all means, start a business.

But if an entrepreneur is what you "Want to be" but you're "not quite sure how
to get there", or even if you're like me-- and you've been starting businesses
since before you were a teenager, but you're not struck dead by a compelling
vision of the startup you need to build RIGHT NOW, or if you've been kicking
around and things aren't quite coming together-- go pay your dues and work for
awhile.

I'm a natural born entrepreneur. I'm the kid who was buying coke wholesale at
walmart and selling it to the other kids. In my day the big thing on the
school yard was toothpicks soaked in cinnamon oil.

I knew I wanted to start companies, and so when I got out of college, I went
to work for a startup. This job, and the ones that followed, taught me a great
deal. I worked my way down until I was an earlier and earlier employee-- I've
seen lots of startup failure modes. I also did some stints contracting for big
tech companies, saw their failure modes too.

It also gave me the opportunity to find what industries worked best, where
leverage was, get industry specific experience, find out what I was best at
doing, and not doing. So, when it was time to do my own thing, a lot of
decisions had already been made or were easily made because I had the
practical knowledge and experience.

I think the glamorousness and programs like YC, and the media attention
towards Facebook and instagram, etc, gives people the wrong idea.

You don't need to do your startup when you're 20, 25, 30. 35, 40, 45, 50,
these are all ages at which great companies have been built.

And believe it or not, experience is a very valuable teacher.

Unlike the article I won't say that some people shouldn't do startups... but I
will say that if you're in one of the categories I mentioned above, there's
absolutely nothing wrong with spending some time paying dues. In fact, its
invaluable.

I would never do a real estate startup because I have no domain expertise
there. I wouldn't propose a new alcoholic beverage, because, again, no domain
expertise. If it was what I _really_ wanted, I'd still go work for someone for
6 months or a year. (nice thing about being a programmer is- sales offices in
both those industries could probably use some help on a contract basis.)

~~~
rendezvouscp
I wish I would have done this. I started working on Iron Money[1] during my
first year of college, and I even took a year off so I could make it
profitable. I don’t regret what I’ve done, but I wish that I had worked for
other companies to get experience before starting my own venture.

In the same way that new companies should be an improvement to what is already
offered by others, I think there is a lot to be said for learning the
successes and failures of how other companies run before starting your own.

[1] <https://IronMoney.com/>

------
its_so_on
this will be mod'd down but it's the truth. Below I reveal entrepreneurship's
REAL dirty little secret.

it's that if you're talking to an early founder about helping in any way,
shape, or form, you are going to get screwed - the question is for how long,
and for how much.

is it just going to be your opportunity cost at accepting the wage that you
were offered and any other compensation? or are you even going to get paid
what you agreed to?

the true dirty little secret to entrepreneurship is downright marxist(3): it's
how much value you can steal from your contributors. but wait, why does that
work in a capitalist system? everyone sets their own price. Ah, but the thing
is, people expect you to at least stick to agreeements. that's how zynga
became zynga. (1)

it's like hollywood accounting - how about fifty thousand and five percent of
net profits? My last three films each grossed over 500 million. (Author
thinks: YES. If this thing makes anything like that, 5% of net profits is
going to make me rich. The film grosses a quarter billion, net
profit...0..)(2)

zynga is entrepreneurship's dirty little secret.

you can mod me down now.

summary of my whole commment: the dirty secret to entrepreneurship is that
it's a sucker's game for a talented developer to come on board as an early
non-founder.

~~~
wpietri
Modded down indeed, but for incoherence.

~~~
its_so_on
I've added clarifications, let me know if there is anything left unclear. (I
didn't want to explain every comment, thought it would be condescending or
unnecessary, but I've explained anything I thought was unclear in an edit, and
can add more if anything is still unclear.

~~~
wpietri
I guess you've worked your way up from incoherence to confused but apparently
baseless allegations.

You appear to suggest that Zynga is typical. It isn't. Indeed, it's gotten so
much press because it is very different than the Silicon Valley norms.

From the exits I've seen, early employees generally do well when founders do
well. The only financial games I've heard of are ones that VC investors play
with founders. E.g., the joy of "participating preferred". But even those
aren't games like Hollywood plays: nobody bends the rules or hides profits.

As a counterexample to Zynga, consider Google. The NY Times estimated in 2007
that there were more than 1,000 employees worth $5m or more thanks to stock
and options: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/12/technology/12google.html>

~~~
its_so_on
I have to say that 90% of what I said applies to the vast majority of startups
today, rather than the occassional one that succeeds big. Google is
characteristic of a different era and philosophy; I doubt very much that it
would be possible for Google to have become Google in today's ethos, and if it
did, it would not have created more than a handful of truly rich people.

~~~
wpietri
And what's your basis for saying you have insight into the vast majority of
startups today? Because an assertion from an anonymous, semi-coherent
commenter isn't doing it for me.

As another counterexample, I just checked the YouTube purchase. They started
much later than Google. When they sold for $1.6 billion, about 140 million
ended up in the hands of the 20 non-founder employees with enough equity to
list in the SEC filing:

<http://www.secinfo.com/d14D5a.uM1t.htm#10gr>

That includes these titles: Senior User Interface Designer, Director for
Networking at YouTube, Senior Engineer, Engineering Manager; Vice President of
Content at YouTube, Director of Product Development, Director of Customer
Support, Systems Architect and Office Manager.

~~~
its_so_on
hi, youtube is the same era and was heavily influenced in gearing up, by input
from google management. I'm talking about now.

~~~
wpietri
YouTube is definitely not the same era. Google was started in 1998, and was
firmly part of Bubble 1.0. YouTube was started in 2005 by former PayPal
people. I see no evidence that their early employee equity deals were
influenced by Google management; if you have some, please provide it.

I can't, of course, prove anything about this week's equity deals by looking
at IPO numbers because median time-to-exit is circa 7 years and we had a long
period with few IPOs. But I don't have any reason to think that people today
are doing something much different. But these historical numbers seem in line
with current advice. E.g.: [http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/employee-equity-
how-much.htm...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/employee-equity-how-
much.html)

You also ignore my request for evidence about your sweeping statements about
the current state of things. Unless you have some, I'm going to presume that
you're one of the many anonymous disgruntled people on the Internet. If you
did get screwed, I'm sorry about that, but I don't think that's reason to go
around tarring a whole industry.

