Given what you know about Bitcoin now, would you buy $100k worth of bitcoin in 2010? Of course you would.
Except...I didn't tell you that your investment would be held by Mt. Gox. You lost your investment.
There is always risk. Always. 97% of startups fail. They are extremely high risk. The earlier you buy in, the higher the potential payout, but the more likely you are to be backing one that will fail. Even the successful ones, after dilution, may or may not be worth more than the cash over how long it took to IPO/be bought out.
You say you get to make risky investments with time; yes...but that's even worse than money. Money is fungible. Time isn't. You have a set amount in life.
Having a 97% chance you're wasting it (actually, higher, since dilution + etc means even a 'success' may mean you made less than the equivalent cash over how long you worked at the place, the extra hours you put in compared to working on side projects, etc) are some pretty long odds.
> You say you get to make risky investments with time; yes...but that's even worse than money. Money is fungible. Time isn't. You have a set amount in life.
that isn't an argument against startups offering options. that only says that you value your time in such a way that precludes you from investing it in startups.
Sure, and I wasn't arguing against startups offering options. Just against startups valuing them over cash, and expecting employees to do the same.
Really, I'd say the whole thing is a red herring; either way you're working. Your time is being used. So the question is do you want to trade that time for a guaranteed amount of money, or a -possible- amount of money (but, high risk). The only way taking the options makes sense is if the salary is -still- high enough to not get in the way of what you want to do, and you could walk away having netted zero from your options and not feel cheated.
Sure, maybe 97% fail, but most have already failed before taking on an employee on equity.
A more appropriate number would be the number of startups that fail after that milestone.
For instance, I calculated the numbers for my country, 40% of startups that get accepted into an incubator succeed, 40% fail and close, and 20% stagnate (mine is currently in the 20%).
So, you're buying a 40% ticket, not a 3% ticket. Still losing odds, but not so much so, and if you're an early employee, you can really help tilt the odds (5%? 10%? I don't know).
Except...I didn't tell you that your investment would be held by Mt. Gox. You lost your investment.
There is always risk. Always. 97% of startups fail. They are extremely high risk. The earlier you buy in, the higher the potential payout, but the more likely you are to be backing one that will fail. Even the successful ones, after dilution, may or may not be worth more than the cash over how long it took to IPO/be bought out.
You say you get to make risky investments with time; yes...but that's even worse than money. Money is fungible. Time isn't. You have a set amount in life.
Having a 97% chance you're wasting it (actually, higher, since dilution + etc means even a 'success' may mean you made less than the equivalent cash over how long you worked at the place, the extra hours you put in compared to working on side projects, etc) are some pretty long odds.