Don’t Get Trampled: The Puzzle For “Unicorn” Employees

As a product-obsessed entrepreneur and investor, I rarely focus on financing mechanics in the start-up world. It tends to be a binary…

As a product-obsessed entrepreneur and investor, I rarely focus on financing mechanics in the start-up world. It tends to be a binary outcome, and people should join a venture for the team and mission more than anything else. However, a string of recent conversations with really talented employees (and prospective employees) at later stage start-ups have stayed in my mind…this post is for them.

Illustration by Oscar Orozco, Behance/99U

A company’s fate is ultimately determined by its people, so talent is everything. But this old adage bumps up against another one: cash is king (or runway is king, for a fast-growing private company). Without runway, talent takes off. 😉 So, it is no surprise that bold moves to extend runway (think late-stage financings at technically large valuations with some tricky liquidation preferences underneath) are done even if they could hurt the company (and its people) in the long run. This is especially true when these financings are ego-driven rather than st…