| > My experience has been that it’s much easier to hit it later vs earlier. Yes, I said in my original comment that it becomes easier to hit the cap as the company grows. However: > It’s very rare to be offered more than 1% of a company that is already worth $5M. The people who get offers like this are, it turns out, the ones complaining about this tax law most loudly. They are not run of the mill employees. This is not true. It's not really that rare for a first hire to get 1% or more[0], and it's also not that rare to have a company that makes that first hire after raising enough money to be valued at $5M. I say this as someone who has been both a founder and an early-stage investor. But more broadly: most of the people who are complaining about this cap (and complaining the loudest) aren't the early employees. They're the ones who joined later - late enough that they're likely "only" to double or triple the value of their equity by the time an IPO happens (unlike early employees), but still early enough that there's no IPO or acquisition on the horizon[1]. [0] http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-how-much/ [1] Which, given the increasing tendency of large startups to delay IPOs "indefinitely", basically means "any employee of a privately-held company". |