[logicallee]

The portion you refer to is pocket change - it would not retain these employees outside Silicon Valley, where such caliber of employees are willing to give great weight to equity.

Read http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2127882/Meet-OTHER-n... and it becomes clear that the 18 employees were recruited mostly with equity.

Hiring the quality of talent that we're talking about, in will1000's market, just doesn't happen using the kind of equity (e.g. 10% pool) that instagram was using, without enough cash in the bank to pay a large base salary to each of those extremely talented people.

Outside silicon valley that's what you would need to do something like this: a whole ton of cash, or lower your standard of employee. Only in Silicon Valley can equity be used for this kind of bargaining power, to retain 18 people who are of such a quality that they are able 36-handedly to build a company in 18 months that is worth $1Billion.

As a simple example: I could never get you to work for me part-time for $0 and 30% equity in our company: except in silicon valley, where I could do so extremely easily, just by showing a product that is near completion.

It's your fault. You're the one who doesn't want the riches and results. You're the one who doesn't want to change the future, by working for next to free for it, and having just equity.

There's a reason a couple of kids in silicon valley can build multibillion dollar companies while on a ramen diet, and you can't.

you (and the market you're in) just doesn't want to.

[jacquesm]

> The portion you refer to is pocket change.

You're currently running a company with in excess of 18 talented engineers without a viable income stream?

And your payroll is 'pocket change'?

> Hiring the quality of talent that we're talking about, in will1000's market, just doesn't happen with the kind of equity (e.g. 10% pool) that instagram was using - outside of silicon valley that is.

Of course it does.

You make some outrageous statement, then fail to back it up, next you make a new outrageous statement which is even further from the truth.

[logicallee]

I'm a bit confused, we might have misunderstood each other.

There's nothing to "back up" - I said that the most talented employees in the world, who can build a $1B company up in 18 months, will not do so outside Silicon Valley in exchange for a 10% employee equity pool, and a low base salary.

Outside Silicon Valley they would only do so for a very high base salary.

[dasil003]

Are you a foreign national who can't move to the valley? Because you certainly have an extremely distorted view of reality. People are not being hired with pure equity with the ease you seem to think. Also, I might add as the co-founder of a growing startup with offices in both Palo Alto and London, salaries are higher and competition for employees stiffer in the valley.

[logicallee]

Let me put it to you this way. Can you hire a talented CEO in London within the next month, who will work for you for below half the median wage in London and be able to build a company with you and a cofounder that is worth $10M within a year?

In the valley, this is easy. You do have to give up equity though.

In London, the above will get you shown the door, with a grin. Haha, good luck.

[dasil003]

I'll ignore the fact that hiring a CEO is something that startups pretty much do not do and ask you this: why do you think it's so easy to hire top talent on primarily equity?

[logicallee]

It's not easy to hire top talent with either primarily equity or primarily salary anywhere in the world: in the valley, the former is at least possible.

[mcintyre1994]

You are an incredibly lucky person if living for 18 months with no salary is plausible for you. Either that or you've already worked somewhere for a large salary. You shouldn't talk down to people because they haven't experienced the same luck as you. Instagram was an exception to just about every rule, and I don't think it's a bad thing that a majority of the world would laugh at anybody trying to sell them the idea of work in it for equity.