Levels fyi shows its FAANG money at all levels I have it listed alongside Google and Amazon and Facebook right now, what did you compare that seemed different? (They’re not reporting consistent 7 figures for any of them) did you see something more granular?
Outside of publicly traded crypto companies you need to talk to a third party recruiter in that space
Solana Labs, for example, one of many, was paying engineers $650,000 back in 2019-2020 (and still is) to mostly write in Rust. Compensation was ~$200k cash and $1.6-$2 million in Solana tokens vesting 3-4 years with 1 year cliff. Solana tokens were $.10 cents back then, so those engineers are sitting on like $100 million+ as Solana trades at $100/sol now, down from $250/sol.
For more typical results, companies that pay in crypto only have a few employees so giving them all a few million dollars in their much smaller less successful crypto still results in being able to liquidate close to the notional value they started with, derisking your time and coming out ahead in general. A “tiny” crypto is still like a $30 million marketcap. Even the $300 million marketcap ones are considered tiny. Market depth / liquidity is usually enough to support a few million dollars of periodic employee sell pressure.
It’s important to keep in mind that working at the next Solana Labs, Alameda Research etc is roughly equivalent in probability as getting drafted in the NBA. That is to say, there aren’t a lot of cases that happen.
collectively? yeah, sure. this is absolutely probable in any organization of that valuation/marketcap, the most interesting thing here is just how fast crypto organizations can accrue and extract value.
tech sector is fast, crypto subsector is like an order of magnitude faster. its similar to tech employment in the 90s where there was fast vesting (mostly due to quick exits), liquidity at super low valuations that then rose extremely quickly and attractive compensation. the main difference now is that the valuations are much much higher. you can tap in sometimes/often at very low valuations - of the token - and also ride them up all the way to billions valuation very quickly. if they solve a market need (within the crypto space) then they attract value very quickly, sometimes that market need can just be the entertainment coming from hype, but most times its bandwidth since there is not enough blockspace to go around, periodically.
Ah, nice, its possible. Yeah earning crypto has always been a greater way to make a lot of money quickly than trying to buy and trade cryptos, because there is no financial risk with your pre-existing capital.
Team and advisor allocations have been this, and have been my best trades. Vesting grants for employees can be lucrative too. Often times these are also discounted prices to whatever any buyer can get. So things amplify very quickly, and there are less ways to lose.
Outside of publicly traded crypto companies you need to talk to a third party recruiter in that space
Solana Labs, for example, one of many, was paying engineers $650,000 back in 2019-2020 (and still is) to mostly write in Rust. Compensation was ~$200k cash and $1.6-$2 million in Solana tokens vesting 3-4 years with 1 year cliff. Solana tokens were $.10 cents back then, so those engineers are sitting on like $100 million+ as Solana trades at $100/sol now, down from $250/sol.
For more typical results, companies that pay in crypto only have a few employees so giving them all a few million dollars in their much smaller less successful crypto still results in being able to liquidate close to the notional value they started with, derisking your time and coming out ahead in general. A “tiny” crypto is still like a $30 million marketcap. Even the $300 million marketcap ones are considered tiny. Market depth / liquidity is usually enough to support a few million dollars of periodic employee sell pressure.