Molson Hart

It's better to save the world, but succeeding with an incremental improvement is also great. The founder of a smaller company without investor dilution can be richer than the founder of a company you've read about in tech crunch.https://twitter.com/sarthakgh/status/1176662222996525057 …

Great point. I think i've mentioned this before but investor dilution gets even worse with liquidation preference stacks.

Yup, unless you can IPO that stuff away (everyone becomes a common stock shareholder), it really hurts. Especially when, on average, people raise much more cash than needed.

Good point re: IPO. Not sure what's the overall distribution of exits. In tech it's getting more common to even just aim for a buyout.

Public market regulations are onerous, a buyout is easier, your investors may be on the acquiring company's board, public investors are realists, and the winner-take-all winners of silicon valley have more cash than they know what to do with. So it makes sense.

Ha, when you put it this way.

AFAICT it's only logical for companies that are too big to be acquired.

Logical yes. Though i think sometimes the original founders/CEOs prefer IPOs too so they can remain in charge of their creations.