The idea that ground-floor employees know more than investors about a company is completely off the mark. Founders have the most information. Investors come next. Employees are dead last. They don't know shit about a company's prospects. Investors get to see the cap table, the compensation structure, and have the social access to vet the key players. Employees have none of that. If an engineer gets 0.25%, then the other 99.75% is completely opaque to him.
People tend toward overconfidence and therefore want to load up on their own performance risk. That's fine. If you're a +3 or +4 sigma intellect, you probably are smarter than people will perceive you as being. That's one key informational advantage you have over the rest of the world: you're smart, they don't realize it. But... that means nothing once you're subsumed into a 50-person "startup", whose macroscopic performance is not really changed by taking on a +4 sigma guy at some dippy subordinate level.
VC-istan investors are the ultimate insider traders. They know everyone, including the acquirers who make markets for their wares. As an employee, you don't. In VC-istan, you don't know shit and the earlier you learn this, the better.
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The idea that ground-floor employees know more than investors about a company is completely off the mark. Founders have the most information. Investors come next. Employees are dead last. They don't know shit about a company's prospects. Investors get to see the cap table, the compensation structure, and have the social access to vet the key players. Employees have none of that. If an engineer gets 0.25%, then the other 99.75% is completely opaque to him.
People tend toward overconfidence and therefore want to load up on their own performance risk. That's fine. If you're a +3 or +4 sigma intellect, you probably are smarter than people will perceive you as being. That's one key informational advantage you have over the rest of the world: you're smart, they don't realize it. But... that means nothing once you're subsumed into a 50-person "startup", whose macroscopic performance is not really changed by taking on a +4 sigma guy at some dippy subordinate level.
VC-istan investors are the ultimate insider traders. They know everyone, including the acquirers who make markets for their wares. As an employee, you don't. In VC-istan, you don't know shit and the earlier you learn this, the better.