And the founders wouldn’t be selling for no cash lmao

Not to take the wind out of a very, very good high-level breakdown, but there are many, many ways for equity to be worthless even if the company appears to have a good outcome.

• acceleration provisions can prevent you from getting your whole award even if the company is acquired
• investors can add liquidation preferences into their terms that mean employees get royally screwed in all but the best case scenarios…and these can stack in multiple rounds of funding. (and right now, these are definitely being included in raise terms)

Just to add a bit of a devil’s advocate as to why options should be mentally discounted from “optimism math” scenarios