Airbnb Employee Stock Windfall
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A story about how Sam Parr's wife made a strategic career move by joining Airbnb that led to significant financial returns.
"My wife Sarah, who's pretty type A and went to an ivy league school, isn't particularly risk-taking. About 4-5 years ago, when she was 25, she wanted to join a new company where she could make money. We made a list of companies where if she was given $250,000 of stock vesting over 4 years, that stock could 10x.
She eventually applied and got a job at Airbnb. When she joined, their valuation was around 18-20 billion, and now their valuation is around 100 billion, so it did about a 5x. She joined as a lower to mid-level employee, got competitive salary, wonderful benefits, and worked hard - but it wasn't like a startup of 20 people where you don't have resources.
The idea was to find companies that are cushier than a 20-person startup but still have wonderful upside. You can make a competitive salary, have wonderful benefits, and there's like a 5-10-15x upside potential."
Sam Parr
Host of MFM and fitness influencer
Sam Parr is a serial entrepreneur and business media pioneer.
In 2016, he founded The Hustle, a business news media company that started in his kitchen with just $12 and grew to eight figures in revenue.
Sam led the charge in making newsletters popular when few believed in their potential.
After four successful years, he sold The Hustle to HubSpot, a publicly traded company. Now operating as HubSpot Media, The Hustle reaches 3 million readers daily, employs a team of nearly 100, and has been the launchpad for dozens of its staff to found their own media companies and newsletters.
Sam remains the host of the popular business podcast, My First Million, and continues to start and sell companies. He also co-founded Hampton, a highly vetted community for entrepreneurs, founders, and CEOs, and teaches people to write better through his platform, Copy That.