PE/Growth/VC Exit vs. Growth Stage Startup (Pre-IPO)
With all the money flowing into investment funds given low interest rates, it seems like it's easier now than ever for growth stage startups to raise more and more funding (and in parallel, investment firms are raising more and more new funds and expanding their AUM).
You're seeing Series C & Series D rounds announced just months apart, and some investors are even doubling down and doing Series "X+" rounds (throwing even more money into a previously established funding round). You're also seeing this carry into the public markets where most high-profile tech IPOs had double or triple digit % gains in their debut given the frothy market and multiples that are at all-time highs.
Bumble is trading at $75 when the initial target range was $37-$39 (~2x). Airbnb's IPO range was $44-50 and it's trading now at $200 (~4-5x)+. Snowflake's initial IPO range was $75-85 and now it's trading at ~$300 (~3-4x). Affirm's initial IPO range was $33-38 and it's now trading at $125 (~3-4x).
SWE's who joined these companies just 1-2 years ago are already well on their ways to being millionaires on paper if not already there.
With that being said, how does the value prop of buyside for folks exiting banking/consulting now compare to joining a growth stage startup that will potentially IPO in the next 3-4 years?
Of course there's the element of luck that the company actually goes public. But when the path for VC/Growth/PE gets you anywhere from ~$200K to 350K on the higher end in TC (and often people exit to industry anyway after a couple years) versus making ~$150K-200K at a Series B-D company working fewer hours in Strategic Finance / Corp Dev / Ops in addition to equity that has the potential to 5-10X ... It seems like now is probably one of the best times perhaps even in the last 20 years to be part of a rocketship tech startup.
Perhaps this is optimizing too much for comp in the medium-term rather than longer-term career considerations, but curious to get people's takes on this.
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