I joined Scale AI just before it became a unicorn. This past week, the company attained a $7B valuation.
Not accounting for dilution, the stock options I was offered have grown ~70x in value. To give you an idea, that’s like being given $15,000 worth of stock and having it grow to become more than $1,000,000 in less than two years.
If Scale grows even more, to the size of Coinbase for example, then that stock could be easily worth over $10,000,000 someday soon.
I have access to none of it because I resigned after less than a year working there.
The thing about founding, or joining an early-stage company, or quitting your nice tech job early to pursue something else (perhaps as crazy as living in the Ecuadorian wilderness), is that it’s a big risk.
And folks who are lucky enough to be able to take such risks confidently—to swing for the fences and likely survive while learning from big mistakes—these folks will be in a position such that they can surely do it again, even better.