Researchers tracked about 180,000 founders of US venture-backed startups from 1987 to 2021. Only 16% got anything when their company exited, and the top 2% took 80% of all the money. Investors spread their bets across many companies, so one big win covers the losses, while each founder has everything on a single bet. The paper also finds that taxing paper gains would shrink the big wins but give more failed founders something back through tax refunds.