What bugs me about Alex's post is that he started at twitter what -- 9 months in? I think I read that somewhere. So it's not to hard to imagine that, given his early start date, and given Twitter's amazing valuations, and given that some employees have cashed out, that he also has taken some money off the table. So my apologies if I'm wrong, but your perspective totally changes even if you make, say, $1MM in cash. That certainly isn't fuck you money, but it does really allow you to be very selective about what you do for the rest of your life and insulates you from lots of downsides. The fact is, if he has a million dollars or so and he shoots for the moon on try 2, his worst case scenario is he has $800K after not taking a salary for 2 years and not even trying to conserve cash. Whereas the downsides facing a different person without a large cash cushion are much worse.
Just my .02, and obviously, if Alex hasn't cashed out, he still holds a decent chunk of Twitter stock that is probably relatively easily converted to cash. That's not to say I don't respect him, because I do, but I think that -- as the 37 signals people have beaten to death -- if you have a 10% chance at $1MM or a .0001% chance at $1B, you'd probably be a fool not go for for the easier, more likely money. Try to shoot the moon try two.
Just my .02, and obviously, if Alex hasn't cashed out, he still holds a decent chunk of Twitter stock that is probably relatively easily converted to cash. That's not to say I don't respect him, because I do, but I think that -- as the 37 signals people have beaten to death -- if you have a 10% chance at $1MM or a .0001% chance at $1B, you'd probably be a fool not go for for the easier, more likely money. Try to shoot the moon try two.