[soldergenie]

Startup employees which took a pay cut in exchange for equity are going to be the biggest losers. At least VCs and private equity have some level of protection against a decline in valuation from their preferred shares/liquidation preferences. It won't protect them against bankruptcy, but it is a lot better than nothing.

Employee's generally don't have that type of protection, and the liquidation preferences also decrease the value of the common shares after a down round. So even with a relatively modest decline in overall valuations, a lot of employees are going to end up with worthless options/shares after a down round.

[hibikir]

Hopefully that will be a good lesson that will hit the next group of young and bright eyed developers.

It's not as if equity is necessarily bad, but unless you are a founder, you have ZERO control over what is going to happen to your equity. If the plan is not to exit after just a few years, you could be stuck for a long time, if just because without an IPO, you won't even be able to keep your equity if you leave, even if it's just because you can't pay the taxes.

I think that educating recent graduates about what are the realistic outcomes of betting on equity. For every early google employee, there are thousands of people whose equity was worth nothing. Even options in big companies can be worth nothing, if they were handed to you at very high prices.

When people learn the real risks, we'll see employees getting either a whole lot more equity, or salaries will go up. Either way, good for the industry.