[_adamb]

My guess is that lots of the no-status ones there are chugging along just fine. No exit, no death. I'm part of Tovala (W16) and in our case, no-status means still in business. I can confirm that's the case for a handful of others too.

In our case, YC was super valuable. We've never been more focused than when going through the program. They make available so many resources you're desperate to grow and try things so you can get as much as possible out of the program.

Even though it has been a while since we were in the bay area for the program, we are still seeing many benefits by the huge and growing network of YC companies.

I can't speak for our co-founders but if we could go back in time, we would absolutely take part in the program again.

[closeparen]

At some point “chugging along” rounds down to “failure” for employees with equity compensation. Particularly at 10 years when it expires.

[benjaminjosephw]

Who would consider building a successful and stable business a failure? Surely not the people that helped build it.

Isn't early employee equity compensation more a case of "if the founders make a lot of money from this, I deserve a fraction of that too" rather than being an IOU in place of compensation?

[closeparen]

Equity compensation is asking employees to invest their labor in the company. If you’re honest about your intention not to generate any return on their investment and they do it anyway, I guess that’s fine, but it seems more likely that people taking those offers are being misled.

Sustainable businesses can buy the labor they need with present cash flows and don’t need to sell people on the possibility of future ones.

[gus_massa]

And that's why every time someone ask how much salary reduction they must accept because they got a .1% equity, the best answer is $0. (And get the offer in written, just in case.)

[ticmasta]

not if you traded early comp for the promise of astronomical equity returns. Especially if you were sold hard on this by the founders; in this scenario they have failed because the goal was not to build a stable, self-sustaining business.

[throwaway2048]

The people who invested money in it expecting explosive growth at high valuations.

[s11doingfine]

I will avoid getting into too much detail. I am in the "old guard" at one of the S11 batch companies who are "chugging along". a few points:

- most people who were around early enough for their grant to begin expiring by now moved on, so the standard termination clause already kicked in.

- some of those who have left did exercise, and understood the risk they took by doing so.

- those who are still here and are approaching that expiration have plenty of leverage to renegotiate.

not all companies in YC are unicorns, and they don't have to be. we are positioned very well, despite taking some time to get there.