Yeah, what he needs is a liquid market for his stock, but startups are very high risk investments with very uneven returns and time helps provide information on which ones are winners.
My early stage startup stock grew 50x by the time the startup was acquired, and nobody is going to give you anything close to the final valuation because the risk is so high. My late stage startup stock in another startp grew 2x in 12 months, which is also an absolutely crazy rate of return. If only I could pick winners like that all the time.
Not all startups are winners, but this is basically what every investing forum tells you about retirement savings: you want higher risk investments (stocks) earlier in life when you have time for your investment to recover from a crash, and you want safer investments when you are older.
So what if you want cash when you're close to retirement? Go work for a big public tech company and sell your stock every vesting period.
My early stage startup stock grew 50x by the time the startup was acquired, and nobody is going to give you anything close to the final valuation because the risk is so high. My late stage startup stock in another startp grew 2x in 12 months, which is also an absolutely crazy rate of return. If only I could pick winners like that all the time.
Not all startups are winners, but this is basically what every investing forum tells you about retirement savings: you want higher risk investments (stocks) earlier in life when you have time for your investment to recover from a crash, and you want safer investments when you are older.
So what if you want cash when you're close to retirement? Go work for a big public tech company and sell your stock every vesting period.