The likelihood of an employee leaving to become a founder has also been linked to the employee’s own performance. Employees whose performance was in the middle of the distribution were the least likely to leave; the most likely were the poor-performing employees (the “slugs” whose pay wasn’t high and who had the least to lose by leaving to found a startup) and the high-performing employees (the “stars” who had the potential to earn high wages by becoming self-employed).
