[kevinflo]

I'm shocked by the comments of those here that don't see why something like this must exist and don't see that there is tremendous financial upside for whoever cracks this. Employee equity can generate unbelievable amounts of wealth as well as unbelievable tax consequences/missed opportunities. The deck is mostly stacked against employees, and you're on your own navigating treacherous waters with little information. A strong company in this space can protect employees and ultimately advocate for them and improve the landscape. Or it can augment the deck being stacked in favor of the investors etc. depending on how things shake out for the winners in this space.

[m463]

It's wonderful for something like this to exist.

> In the future, Compound will earn revenue by offering financial products.

This is the only thing I would be concerned about. Would it generate a conflict of interest with some advice?

[samblr]

This is really good discussion.I ve created Ask HN post to learn more about equity return of early stage employees

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20618916

[ryanmercer]

>I'm shocked by the comments of those here that don't see why something like this must exist and don't see that there is tremendous financial upside for whoever cracks this.

Some of us don't live inside the Bay Area startup bubble. I've never worked for a place that has offered equity, I've worked for publicly traded companies and the government. For the vast majority of Americans (and the world) this is a situation where we will never see ourselves in, so some of us see this as a weird business idea given the incredibly limited market that relies on a booming economy resulting in VC money funding startups to survive.

As someone else in this thread said, this is a startup for startups.

I can see why YC funded it "we exist to fund startups, startups offer equity when they can't afford to pay employees fairly, of course we'll fund a startup that helps employees of startups!".

However the problem here is, YC has never existed with their current model during a recession. Y Combinator was founded in March of 2005 with what like 8 companies and a much smaller contribution, the recession started a few years later.

Fast forward to last year and they had 273 companies present at demo days between winter and summer batch, at what 150k a pop? What happens when we enter the next inevitable recession? Will accelerators like YC have 50 million dollars (given the events they put on, I imagine you can at least round up to 50 million) to fund startups at these levels? Or will they have to drastically dial back and fund considerably less companies and focus more on the continuity fund and additionally funding companies that are seeing growth?

Then enter Compound, relying entirely on startups popping up offering equity. Enter a recession and a lot of startups are likely to fail during tha tperiod because VCs will be less inclined to take on risky investments, companies and consumers will be less likely to take on buy new goods or pay for new services, and then Compound is suddenly like "whoa, if there's no startups offering equity we have no customers, we don't have any other product ideas!!!" Press Release: Company Compound has shuttered, in a noble gesture Compound posted all employee resumes on the website and urge companies to consider interviewing these now unemployed persons.

This is a problem I consistently see with YC companies and VC in general the Bay Area exists in a alternate reality, or fantasy, bubble that does not resemble the rest of the country or how most Americans lives are. That isn't sustainable. I mean you have all these SaaS companies -most Americans have no idea what software as a service is and doesn't need to have their toaster tweet that it is toasting the 17th piece of toast this week so that D0ughb0x can ship more artisanal gluten free free trade gmo free bread and notify the Ca$#p@y app that the subscriber's digital life companion Phriendly should request authorization for payment-.

Ok, maybe that example is a bit ridiculous but seriously, look at a list of the companies for the past few YC batches... there are some absolutely ridiculous ideas, most of these companies will fail miserably and would NEVER have been seeded during a recession, what happens to Compound when startup numbers plummet and they can't find customers to educate about equity?

[CindyBiSV]

Great to see such candid comments and this clearly shows you actually really care about this startup's mission "Compound is entirely focused on helping you—the employee—understand and manage your equity."

(Full disclosure: I've been following this founder for a while to see him do great things)

"there are some absolutely ridiculous ideas, most of these companies will fail miserably and would NEVER have been seeded during a recession"

So, to state the obvious here, recession is actually one of the best times to start companies or join solid startups to earn early-employee equity: fortune rewards the bold. And to some extent, that's the best concentrated personal wealth investment if you choose wisely which early-stage startup to join, especially when you don't have lots of cash sitting around to "buy the dip" from public market. So why not "join the dip" to take advantage of the recession years (golden era, blessing in disguise) to become equity rich coming out of the other side?

I believe it's true that many/most non-VC-funded startups don't give employee equity, but don't you think this situation actually also needs to change? Just like now remote/distributed work is all the rage, in 5-10-20-25yrs when most/many other companies also give employee equity for them to have the opportunity to "earn concentrated wealth" from 'investing in" what they work on at the company?

I see Compound's mission very aligned with employees at all kinds of companies of different time, start from a smaller focus market (VC-funded startups), to serving majority of the planet in the future :)

[freddieoduks]

> look at a list of the companies for the past few YC batches... there are some absolutely ridiculous ideas, most of these companies will fail miserably and would NEVER have been seeded during a recession

Out of curiosity, what is the problem with people trying "ridiculous' ideas? Airbnb and Uber were considered ridiculous at the time and look how that turned out. Sometimes ridiculous ideas can turn to fantastic companies that add economic value to the world. The opportunity cost of not chasing these ridiculous ideas is worse than otherwise if you ask me.