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.
现在有一个奇怪的现象，私人市场流动性为零，公共市场反而是高流动性，两者之间没有产生交叉。私人市场流动性不足带来三个问题。
员工生活贫困
创始员工以较低的人力工资换取股权。如今，唯一的流动性途径是IPO上市或者收购，而这些可能性99%不会发生。对大部分初创员工，股权兑换从来没有发生，因此这张纸从来没有真正变成财富。
对少数幸运的员工来说，为一家IPO公司工作，它需要花费很长的时间（通常是10年甚至更久），这样的低收入其实并不值得。创始人和风险投资者并不会有这个问题。创始人常常会向投资人要求按照2%每年的回报支付。只有员工才不能不面对彩票一样的股权。
原文链接：Liquidity is coming