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Ask HN: VC spread risk why not employees

8 points by nytesky ↗ HN
Looking at how VCs spread their investments across many different startups, we should try to foster a model where employees can join multiple startups (with commiserate equity). Kind of like Freelancers Union where they pool for insurance coverage, and then work %time at a variety of startups which can offer relative salary. Would this make startups more attractive than FAANG b/c you hopefully have a better chance of some upside? Y would be a great place to help start this land build a marketplace for work.

3 comments

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sethammons
My understanding is this is basically what happens in the bay area, but since you can only work at one company at a time due to employment agreements, many people work the minimum time to get some options and then hop to the next employer and do the same, building a portfolio of options where hopefully some become worth something.
Trias11
My partner is managing consulting company and for delivering successful projects it is important to have key employee's 100% attention to the project.

He is having constant issues with 2 guys who are in "...sorry could you repeat the question?" - type of attention span.

lostdog
I heard a funny story about a set of grad students at Stanford. They all committed to pooling some percent of any startups they created.

One version of this legend included Google as one of the companies.