Employee #100 seems a bit implausible. If you joined Dropbox as employee #100 it would be in early 2012, at which point they had just gotten a $4B valuation. It’s only gone up 2.5x since then—a mere 35% per year—so you probably wouldn’t have done better than a founder over the equivalent timespan. Especially once you take into account the many worse options that were in Dropbox’s reference class in 2012, like Fab.
That said, I agree that trying to forecast startups is probably a useful exercise—and maybe even possible to do historically, if you’re interested in ones as high-profile as Dropbox. It’s an open question to me how efficient the market is here (i.e., are companies with semi-obvious predictors of success likely to offer less equity).
I heard a rumor suggesting Dropbox was slower to hire than the typical tech company (i.e. a $4B company with <100 employees is somewhat atypical even in tech), though this may be what the norm is trending towards.
It’s only gone up 2.5x since then—a mere 35% per year—so you probably wouldn’t have done better than a founder over the equivalent timespan. Especially once you take into account the many worse options that were in Dropbox’s reference class in 2012, like Fab.
Great point. I would add that 35% annual raises are completely within the realm of possibility in direct employment as well.
Employee #100 seems a bit implausible. If you joined Dropbox as employee #100 it would be in early 2012, at which point they had just gotten a $4B valuation. It’s only gone up 2.5x since then—a mere 35% per year—so you probably wouldn’t have done better than a founder over the equivalent timespan. Especially once you take into account the many worse options that were in Dropbox’s reference class in 2012, like Fab.
That said, I agree that trying to forecast startups is probably a useful exercise—and maybe even possible to do historically, if you’re interested in ones as high-profile as Dropbox. It’s an open question to me how efficient the market is here (i.e., are companies with semi-obvious predictors of success likely to offer less equity).
I heard a rumor suggesting Dropbox was slower to hire than the typical tech company (i.e. a $4B company with <100 employees is somewhat atypical even in tech), though this may be what the norm is trending towards.
Great point. I would add that 35% annual raises are completely within the realm of possibility in direct employment as well.