Of those 10% exits, 50% are acquisitions. Acquisitions are rarely lucrative for rank and file employees. But even at 10%, you need to have a crystal ball as an employee. YC is not an especially strong selector. And unicorn is baseline success these days (the data is from 2025), so we at the 5% level not 10%. Maybe you aren't aware of typical equity grants beyond, say, employee 10. You need at least a unicorn exit to match a big tech salary.
I mean you're right, you don't have to return the fund. You have to match (risk-adjusted) the opportunity cost of a big tech salary. Incredibly hard and luck is the most relevant factor. Meanwhile, if you job hop out of the startup after startup because they mostly go nowhere, your resume quickly becomes uninteresting (ye olde 1 year of experience 5 times problem). So you do have to stick it out.
> idea is dumb and bad.
the idea rarely matters. ideas are free. execution is king.
This is a very cynical read of the data. Most of the companies discussed here are still too early to have an exit.
If you look at the early batches (which are the only ones where all the companies are dead or exited), then more than half of them got to an exit.
And looking at all the companies, only 13% have failed so far, compared to 10% with exits. And failures generally come way before exits, so the data is incredibly biased if not taken on a cohort basis.
I disagree that acquisitions are rarely lucrative. I have been part of several and they have both been good for rank and file (me).
> the idea rarely matters. ideas are free. execution is king.
This is true at the earliest stage where the idea is very fungible. And execution always matters, but there are people out here working on the 50th Travel Booking Assistant who you should not go and work for. If the idea didn't matter, YC wouldn't ask about it.
> your resume quickly becomes uninteresting (ye olde 1 year of experience 5 times problem)
Nobody is forcing you to spend your entire career doing 1 year stints.
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/pulling-back-the-curtain-...
Of those 10% exits, 50% are acquisitions. Acquisitions are rarely lucrative for rank and file employees. But even at 10%, you need to have a crystal ball as an employee. YC is not an especially strong selector. And unicorn is baseline success these days (the data is from 2025), so we at the 5% level not 10%. Maybe you aren't aware of typical equity grants beyond, say, employee 10. You need at least a unicorn exit to match a big tech salary.
I mean you're right, you don't have to return the fund. You have to match (risk-adjusted) the opportunity cost of a big tech salary. Incredibly hard and luck is the most relevant factor. Meanwhile, if you job hop out of the startup after startup because they mostly go nowhere, your resume quickly becomes uninteresting (ye olde 1 year of experience 5 times problem). So you do have to stick it out.
> idea is dumb and bad.
the idea rarely matters. ideas are free. execution is king.