It is an odd artifact of history that private markets have zero liquidity, public markets have hyper-liquidity, and there is nothing in between. This illiquidity in private markets has created three problems.
Employees live poorer
Startup employees take lower salaries in exchange for equity. Today, the only path to liquidity is IPO or acquisition for which 99% of startup employees never see. For the overwhelming majority of startup employees, the equity lottery ticket is never redeemed and their paper wealth never converts to real wealth.
For the lucky few employees to work for a company on the path to IPO, it can take so long (sometimes a decade or more), that pay cuts for equity are not worth it. Founders and venture investors don’t have this problem. Founders often negotiate personal liquidity into their financing rounds and investors are paid a generous 2% in annual fees for the lifetime of their fund. It is only employees that have to sacrifice for their lottery ticket.
現在有一個奇怪的現象，私人市場流動性爲零，公共市場反而是高流動性，兩者之間沒有產生交叉。私人市場流動性不足帶來三個問題。
員工生活貧困
創始員工以較低的人力工資換取股權。如今，唯一的流動性途徑是IPO上市或者收購，而這些可能性99%不會發生。對大部分初創員工，股權兌換從來沒有發生，因此這張紙從來沒有真正變成財富。
對少數幸運的員工來說，爲一家IPO公司工作，它需要花費很長的時間（通常是10年甚至更久），這樣的低收入其實並不值得。創始人和風險投資者並不會有這個問題。創始人常常會向投資人要求按照2%每年的回報支付。只有員工纔不能不面對彩票一樣的股權。
原文鏈接：Liquidity is coming