Start-up workers came into 2022 expecting another year of cash-gushing initial public offerings. Then the stock market tanked, Russia invaded Ukraine, inflation ballooned, and interest rates rose. Instead of going public, start-ups began cutting costs and laying off employees.
People started dumping their start-up stock, too.
The number of people and groups trying to unload their start-up shares doubled in the first three months of the year from late last year, said Phil Haslett, a founder of EquityZen, which helps private companies and their employees sell their stock. The share prices of some billion-dollar start-ups, known as âunicorns,â have plunged by 22 percent to 44 percent in recent months, he said.
âItâs the first sustained pullback in the market that people have seen in legitimately 10 years,â he said.
Thatâs a sign of how the start-up worldâs easy-money ebullience of the last decade has faded. Each day, warnings of a coming downturn ricochet across social media between headlines about another round of start-up job cuts. And what was once seen as a sure path to immense riches â owning start-up stock â is now viewed as a liability.
