Noah Kogan left Mint.com because he owned 1% equity and calculated a $500 million exit would net him $2 million after taxes. He figured he could make the same amount in four years building something himself, so staying wasn't worth it.
It's always interesting to think about people's visions. Like, Mark's vision at Facebook was always this big. It's interesting to see different people and like how big they're thinking. So I think Mint could have been a much larger role. I thought Mint was going to sell for that price. That's why I left early. Why? Why did you think it was going to sell for that price? Aaron thought big, but it was like, hey, we're going to sell credit cards and we're going to sell people TurboTax. And I was like, okay, this at best scenario is going to sell for half a billion just in terms of how big that company could actually be. And I just did the math to think about, well, I own 1%. So max, I'll get $5 million pre-tax, which post-tax means I'll get $2 million. And I was like, I think, you know, in 4 years, do I think I can generate $2 million for myself? And so I was willing to take that bet.
