I’ve always joined startups around the low single digit billion valuation and they’ve all given me huge returns (upwards of 15x). I think it’s pretty obvious which companies are in hyper growth mode (early stage Uber, Airbnb, Stripe, Robinhood, etc). So my question now (which may be silly) is why does anyone work at Google or Facebook? Especially those who have been at Google and Facebook for 4+ years. Clearly they’ve missed out on huge rocketship startups, and I don’t understand why they still work at these large tech companies and make less money than people who follow my strategy. And yes those people at Google and Facebook may be senior managers making 700k a year or whatever, but I’ve been making over that amount with a lower engineering level simply by picking rocketship startups. Despite some rocketships not doing well post-ipo, joining early enough basically makes it inconsequential. Better question even is why people bother joining Robinhood now? Sure, they might get some sweet offers of 350k for 2 yoe, but that’s not really comparable to picking an early stage startup and riding that rocket for free. Why bother joining these huge mature companies at all? Google has just grown maybe 3x in five years, which is tiny compared to hyper growth startups. Tc: 1.1 million due to stock appreciation from joining early at Robinhood despite the stock tanking. Will soon join another early startup. Yoe: 8+
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Risk vs stability. The avg 40 yr old with 2 kids, a home mortgage and probably other responsibilities will not prefer to work in a risk laden startup. If you are 20, just starting career go for it. Find a startup that excites you and work for it, see how it goes. Even if u lose everything and company burns down, just reset ur career and start fresh at a mid to large company. You will still be just in your late 20s, but with the knowledge, maturity and exposure of a comparable senior person in a mainstream company.
This - you need to either be young enough to be OK having roommates, or have already made a fortune elsewhere. I'm looking now, and I think my limit is a place that'll at least IPO within 12-18 months to keep covering expenses.
Did the startup thing, didn't get rich, helped with my skills growth, but now I'm done with that. Much prefer to have good WLB at a stable company that makes a product that makes people happy.
Same.
Pixar, which startup was that?
People have families. I want to spend more time with my kids instead of working 8+ hours a day.
Understandable, makes total sense for older people. But what confuses me (and why I made this post) is when I see people in their early to mid 20s start off in google and Facebook and stay for 5 years. They have a great career trajectory, reaching manager or staff positions in five years, but I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t take their top skills to a startup instead and make an order of magnitude more money
I just got close too 450k on iso stock option from thredup after 5 years. This is after stock going down to 9 (from 31). I will be hitting late 30s soon and I have kids. I am definitely doing the next startup too.and no I have not sold the stock yet waiting for the stock to go back to 20s before I sell. If I sell at 20 I will be getting around 800-900k before long term capital gains tax. I own 42k shares.
Startups are doing horrible. Affirm & confluent are doing well. So many others just suck…next door, nerd wallet, wish, one medical, clover health & on and on.
Seems like every bank and PayPal are rolling out their own pay later programs. I’d abandon ship if I was at affirm.
True. And I believe Extend is the next incarnation of Affirm, at least seems like affirm people are jumping ship to Extend.
OP you seem to have had a good eye for promising startups, or have gotten lucky. Which do you see on the horizon with the 10-50x returns you’ve experienced
Pave
op knows nothing. If he is good enough, he would be an successful investor, no need to to join start up anymore
Expected value is higher for Big Tech
Idk about that, i was pretty confident in my startup choices over 8 years and they played out like I expected. No 1000x returns like the seed stage employees, but certainly some good 10-30x returns consistently (roughly speaking)
And I wasn’t the only one, my friend group also plays this game
Is there any site to find out valuations of startups etc? Which site do you use op to find companies before you interview with them?
I don’t join company that are so early stage that most people don’t know about them. Companies like Uber Airbnb stripe doordash Databricks Robinhood were already very famous even at a billion and under valuation
You need to work at FAANG first to get a decent offer at a unicorn startup. They aren’t going to offer someone with no names companies on their resumes the high base / half mil RSU package. But you are right once you’re at that level the goal should be to bounce around series C startups on Forbes Cloud100 list for a couple of years to maximize TC
I started at a young unicorn out of college and just kept jointing new ones, so I don’t necessarily think Faang is a prerequisite. Also I don’t think most ppl are joining faang with the intention to use it as a launching pad for startups. I just usually see people from faang going to other faang or very mature unicorns.
Op, are you from stanford or a similar reputed university? then yes Faang is not prerequisite. I had multiple Faang offers at different times , however getting good offer from a good preIPO is not necessarily easier than G. They have different competitive interview process(for example Stripe). Also often times, they do not even consider you for interview(not talking about current hot market, but before that). You need certain factors like alumni connections etc. Also things like visa dependencies stop a number of people. For example 1-2 million more NW is not worth the stress of being part of Airbnb's layoffs and having to leave US overnight.
Everyone looks like a genius in a bull market. Also, maybe some people just didn't want to make a taxi app or stock buying app.
Then what about all the people who didn’t jump around startups in the bull market? They can’t all collectively be anti-geniuses From my experience as well, most people don’t actually care about what they build. These early unicorns are filled with people who know they can hit a 10-20x and just want the money.
He's not saying they aren't all anti-genius. He's saying that everyone looks like a genius. Whether they are or aren't is up in the air.
Something like 99% of startups fail. Why trade a guaranteed million dollars at faang (after say 5-6 years) for a startup that's highly likely to fail or even if succeeds will barely break even. Even ignoring much better wlb, stability, career progression, etc.
I think OP is talking about unicorns. How likely is it for a unicorn to fail or not give enough returns?
I think it’s much easier picking startups in the low single digit billion valuations. I personally don’t join series A startups for example, but Uber, Airbnb, Stripe, Doordash, etc at 1 billion we’re all pretty obvious imo