This is a pretty good illustration of the impact of raising capital. Building a company making $50M arr is really difficult and requires skill, hardwork and a lot of things breaking right for you. While it seems he got a good exit, it seems much less than the wild payout one might have thought would be the case in a scenario like this. Capital isn't free. If you raise money, you should understand the implications for what you have to deliver in order to have meaningful outcomes.

Right. And his new, non-venture capital model for raising money for his next company seemed to work pretty well: https://sparktoro.com/blog/raised-a-very-unusual-round-of-fu...

I'm glad Rand got his share, even thought it was way smaller than initially planned!

Reading it with no previous context I thought it would end up with the author penniless and hacking away at some job just to make ends meet. Ended up reading like a humblebrag, kind of "I only had a six figure sum in savings, and how I'm a millionaire".