| Your observation is very interesting. Mark Suster's article ("The Changing Venture Landscape"[1]) also discusses how today's startups raise significantly more early funding and how this is changing the venture landscape -- more money chasing fewer deals, raising valuations, but also non-angel investors having certain expectations of their startups. Taken together, do these observations imply a structural change to how venture and startups work? When I was starting my first company in 2012, your point on identity rang true -- I tied my identity to the startup and so did our early employees. Now, many of the startup CEOs (and venture studios, angel funds, incubators, etc.) seem more like money managers and financial engineers. ...and I guess this might be why compensation expectations are changing. Thanks for sharing your thought. I've been bothered by the way startups seem to work nowadays and I haven't been able to fully articulate why. The above is helping me clarify that. EDIT: as I try and clarify my thinking here, it sometimes feels to me like many startups today feel more akin to private equity (PE) projects. In such a scenario, you'd expect founder compensation to change (as per the original link). It'a also in line with Suster's post + observations of hedge funds and PE shops funding more startups[2]. [1] https://bothsidesofthetable.com/the-changing-venture-landsca... [2] https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/how-hedge-funds-are-lead... |
Sadly this also works in favor of VCs, who get an excuse to raise 10-20x larger funds and live off of the management fees.