Everyone got caught up in the dot com boom. This includes founders, VCs, employee shareholders, public shareholders, and acquiring companies. To blame just founders and VCs as money-grubbers who screwed everyone else makes them sound much smarter than they actually were. Even the best VCs blew hundreds of millions of $ in bad bets, like how Sequoia plowed money into Webvan.
Public investors committed the largest valuation run-ups at the time. Remember how hot day trading was? In the end, they got left with the short end of the stick.
Your general sentiment is right. The people who are rich now are the ones who cashed out when times got frothy. Hard working employees should be given the same opportunity as the people who architect the deal.
Public investors committed the largest valuation run-ups at the time. Remember how hot day trading was? In the end, they got left with the short end of the stick.
Your general sentiment is right. The people who are rich now are the ones who cashed out when times got frothy. Hard working employees should be given the same opportunity as the people who architect the deal.