
Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k? - fideloper
Equity for employees is commonly part of an employment package, but:<p>1. It&#x27;s rare for startups to succeed
2. It&#x27;s rare for non-owning employees to be able to exercise shares&#x2F;receive money when the company sells due to the structure of VC-backing&#x2F;ownership and the resulting order of who gets paid&#x2F;when<p>We all hear stories about when employee equity does not work out. Are there any examples of when it DOES work out well for an employee with equity?
======
some_coder_99
I'm at the bottom end of that range - here are my real numbers for one real
option vesting story (on a throwaway):

1\. I quit an engineering job at a bigco to become engineer #2 (employee #3)
at a startup where I was given about 1.5%. I joined just after their initial
fundraise.

2\. I took a huge pay cut - from $120k in total comp at bigco to $60k at
startup.

3\. The startup was acquired roughly 2.5 years later by a larger startup, my
pay went up to $140k and my options converted to roughly 0.1% of the larger
startup.

4\. I stayed for a year at the larger startup, vested half my options and
purchased them, which cost me about $60k to exercise. This is a lot of money
to come up with when you've been underpaid for a couple of years.

5\. The larger startup was acquired by a large public company - my shares were
worth just shy of $500k once the dust settled.

Overall, the money I lost in salary is a little bit less than what I gained in
equity over that 3.5 year period, once you factor in taxes, exercise costs,
the time value of deferred compensation, and the raises I presumably would
have gotten if I had stayed at bigco.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat because the experience was amazing (and led me
to start my own company), however, I would have a hard time advising anyone to
take a big pay cut in exchange for employee equity for solely financial
reasons.

~~~
joshdance
Half a million sounds awesome until you factor in lower salary like you did.
Great post. Thanks.

------
tptacek
Yes, my first startup job got me into the high end of that range, as employee
#5, with a relatively small acquisition.

I know several people who took home much more from employee roles (albeit in
larger acquisitions) in the recent past.

A lot of it has to do with who you work with. In every case I can think of,
windfall money for employees came from founders with a track record of
accomplishing that (or, in my case, a founder who would soon develop that
track record, and was, in the company I was at, extremely committed to making
sure his team was well compensated at liquidity).

This is one of the reasons I don't love Paul Graham's hacker startup thesis,
about working very hard for 5-10 years so you can take it easy for the rest of
your life. There are a lot of problems with that idea, but one of them is that
it generates a lot of loss aversion instinct for founders.

~~~
_abattoir
Right, PG's advice is not useful for all founders, just the 1 out of every 10
that makes it big. The others are supposed to nut up and get over it.

His advice does, however, benefit every venture capitalist.

~~~
tptacek
Critiques of Paul Graham and YC lose me the instant they suggest that they're
rigging the system for venture capitalists. I've got friends in YC, I've
worked closely with YC companies for years, I know several people _at_ YC, and
the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that their intentions are (a) good and
(b) founder-aligned.

I'm pretty sure they're wrong about a couple things --- particularly the stuff
that comes from some of the earlier PG essays. That's not the same as being
corrupted. I'm wrong about a lot of stuff too.

~~~
jjoonathan
I don't think there are many who would seriously suggest that YC/PG have bad
intentions but survivor bias can have exactly the same effect.

So can a "big picture" view: a 90% probability of failure might not seem
nearly so bad to someone who can hedge by investing (not necessarily just $)
in hundreds of companies. Expectation maximization is much more appealing when
you have enough trials to get one of them off the ground. Whereas a founder
"starting from 0" might reasonably prefer a ~maximin approach. Neither
objective is wrong or corrupt, but advice that suits one and not the other
might as well be.

PG and everyone in YC know this and I'm sure they all make honest efforts to
work around the tension, but we should be realistic about the fact that
tension exists.

~~~
robrenaud
It seems rational for entrants in a YC class to all invest in each other, to
hedge the failure risk. Why doesn't everyone in a given YC class (say, of 100
people) agree to give 10% of their company to a holding company, in response
for 1% ownership of that holding company?

~~~
fizx
Everyone might have to be an accredited investor, which the majority would not
qualify for. Another potential problem is that companies want to keep their
cap tables minimal for regulatory reasons. Also, how does the 10% vote in
board decisions?

Also, what if some companies held out. So now 80% of the YC companies are in
this hedge fund. Wouldn't the most successful companies disproportionately
come from the 20%--the ones who had enough confidence to reject the deal?
Would the smart people in the 80% then defect as well, bringing the cabal down
to 60%?

------
aetherson
I was employee, like, #1,000 or so for NetSuite -- hired as a QA engineer and
eventually moved over to development. I was hired I think about two years
before it went public, and stayed for six years overall.

My equity came out to about $300k. Which I know does not hit the thresholds
that you put in the post, but clearly many of my coworkers who came in earlier
and were more senior -- but still not founders nor part of the founding team
-- did a lot better.

EDIT: I should point out $300k was more or less actual. If I had been really
good at selling at the top of the market, it would've been more like $400k. I
suppose that overall it might end up being more or less, I still have a few
tens of thousands in stock, but most of it ended up being the down payment on
my house. The $300k was after buying into the stock (since I wasn't a super-
early employee, many of my options cost like 10-25% of the then-market-value
to buy), and after some taxes? But not all? AMT and prepayment of some taxes
and stuff and my overall lack of financial discipline made it really hard for
me to figure out how much tax I owed specifically on the stock.

Another EDIT: Something else to point out was that at NetSuite, this was NOT
principally from my initial grant at hire. NetSuite gave new grants of stock
every year with ones yearly review, and those grants were pretty generous.
Everything was on the same five year vest with a one-year cliff, so I got my
entire year 1 and year 2 grants and then fractions of my remaining years. The
year 1 grant was at the lowest rate to buy in, but that wasn't hugely
important. I would guess that about 1/3rd of the stock that I eventually
realized came from my year 1 grant. I've never been sure if that's common
practice or not with other companies, and if someone could shed some light on
that, it'd be awesome.

~~~
Eridrus
Would you mind disclosing at what stage of the process you got your initial
grant, and how much that grant was diluted along the way to the IPO?

~~~
aetherson
I don't mind disclosing but I don't really know. This was almost 9 years ago
at this point, and my memory is hazy, plus I was pretty naïve about all of
this crap back then.

I definitely had at least one dilution event. Could that have been concurrent
with the actual IPO? I want to say that I lost like 1/3rd of the ownership
share of my stock, but honestly that could be total fabrication at this point,
please don't bank on it.

------
swingbridge
Worth pointing out that when people throw numbers around the stock value alone
may sound impressive but that has to be compared against the opportunity cost
that's usually associated with that route. Usually those options are handed
out because the employee is accepting less cash or other compensation than
another employer might pay then for similar work.

Walking away with $750k after 5 years might sound fantastic, but in some cases
the person might actually be worse off relative to someone (say a senior role
at an established firm) that had a package of higher salary, sizeable annual
cash bonus and other perks often not found at startups. One needs to study the
whole picture, not just some cash out amount at a liquidity event.

~~~
ritchiea
I would argue there is value in the bubble payout itself. Even if you're good
at saving & investing over the course of many years the assets and liquidity
you have when you cash in your equity gives you a chance to take risks and
meet potential business partners that you don't have as a salaryman who's good
with his money.

~~~
breischl
That might be true as a rule of thumb for the general population. Although
historically people who get large payouts (eg, lottery winners) tend to do
very poorly with them. And for someone who is truly "good with money" to the
extent of avoiding all lifestyle inflation and investing as much as possible,
the periodic payouts are definitely better.

For the sake of argument, let's say that you have two positions which will pay
the same total cash compensation. BigCorp's job will pay it out in equal
amounts over 5 years, whereas NewCo's job will pay out 10% each year for 4
years, and then 60% in year 5.

BigCorp will almost certainly result in a lower overall tax bill because much
of each year's income is taxed at lower rates. NewCo will result in a lower
tax bill for 4 years due to the lower income, but year 5 will probably put a
large amount of compensation in the top marginal tax bracket.

Also, the BigCorp job will afford more opportunities for outside investing
(stock market, real estate, whatever) and possibly more free time to do it in.
So with BigCo you'll have had four years of compounding investment growth
before NewCo really gets started on it.

~~~
ritchiea
Realistically do you think a lottery winner is comparable to a successful
startup employee? Lottery winners are entirely random while startup successes
comes after years of working in a structured business environment with a built
in community of successful business people. A lottery winner could be a guy in
small town Tennessee who got lucky while he worked at the local corner store
and has a group of friends & family asking for his money. A startup success is
one or two social ties away from Sequoia or Peter Thiel, has meaningful work
experience and has a group of friends actively trying to make him more money.
There's a huge difference.

And I honestly don't mean this to be dismissive of a "typical lottery winner."
The social environment you live in is a huge deal. Being in the SV community
is going to lead you down a path of investments that typical lottery winners
don't have immediate access to. If you win the lottery and Warren Buffet is a
family friend you're much more likely to do well than if you win the lottery
and your mother was receiving food stamps when you were in elementary school.
Business people will answer your email, almost anyone's email, I'm not a big
deal by any stretch of the imagination but I've chatted with Gary V and
exchanged emails with Paul Graham. If lightning struck and I had a suddenly
had a bunch of money to invest I could ask for powerful, connected help and
there's a good chance I would get it from someone because no one cares how you
made the money in your bank account. But at the very least I know where to
look for that help, random lottery player guy doesn't necessarily have that
and that's just his environment not anything inherent about him. Startup
employee who cashed out is probably a lot more like me than typical lottery
winner.

~~~
breischl
>>Realistically do you think a lottery winner is comparable to a successful
startup employee?

In some ways, yes. Certainly there are difference, but people are people. How
many college grads get their first job that pays real money and immediately
throw themselves into debt for new cars and nice condos? How many people cash
out of a startup and plow the proceeds into another one, effectively doubling
down on that particular lottery?

Clearly there are differences between the groups, so the average outcomes
could definitely be different. But I don't think it's obviously true.

It would be interesting to see a longitudinal study of people who cashed out
significant amounts from startups. I'm sure they do better than the average
lottery winner - but then they were probably doing better before the windfall
as well. The interesting question would be whether the windfall changed their
trajectory, or was just a blip.

------
throwawayg
I joined in Google in early 2005, post IPO, as an entry level SWE. I was
probably employee #3000 - #9000 (there were about 3000 employees at the time).

I made over $2M from stock options. Lots of people sold their stock as soon as
it vested, in which case it would've amounted to about $1M. If I had held out
until now (the price spiked around 2013), it would have been closer to $4M.

I think people don't understand the order of magnitude difference between
great companies and astounding companies.

A great company is worth $300 M. Google is worth $300 B.

That means if you would have gotten two THOUSAND dollars from the successful
company, you would get two MILLION dollars from Google [1]. 3 orders of
magnitude is a big difference!

If your goal is to get rich, it's perhaps a better strategy to join the right
company at the right time, rather than start your own company (although that
was definitely not my strategy).

Though this advice sounds obvious, I haven't heard it in many places. I recall
a startup class lecture [1] from a founder of Asana, on why NOT to do a
startup. And he said don't do it for the money -- because if you want to do it
for the money, you should join a company like AirBNB or Dropbox now. These are
companies that could be at a similar cycle in their growth as Google was in
2005.

In other words, join a great company that could be astounding.

Another source is Piaw Na's book. I don't really know him, and at first I
thought it was weird to have a career strategy of choosing companies based on
equity, but it's definitely a logical thing to do if you're so inclined:

[http://www.amazon.com/Engineers-Guide-Silicon-Valley-
Startup...](http://www.amazon.com/Engineers-Guide-Silicon-Valley-Startups-
ebook/dp/B004Q9U19G)

$2M doesn't sound like that much any more, but when I see these HN threads
about exits and equity, I believe I made out better than many startup
founders, as a regular employee.

[1] caveat: I believe Google was still idealistic and generous in 2005; the
Valley has changed a lot in the last decade, so YMMV

[2] I can't find it here, but I thought it was?
[http://startupclass.samaltman.com/](http://startupclass.samaltman.com/)

~~~
arturadib
This is the most thoughtful, balanced answer in this thread. Kudos.

~~~
wonderthrowaway
Agreed. View your prospective employer as if you were an investor. Think like
Buffett. If your timing is right, a profitable, proven and sustainable
business model is worth far more for most than a lottery ticket. Grow rich
slowly.

Joined a post-IPO company, saw peers waste options on cars 10K cars that would
be $800K homes today, sat tight, did good work, collected equity, which, if
spread over my whole career, equates before tax to about 3-4x my average
annual salary per annum over a very long, multi-decade career.

It was risky, no doubt. Had I not executed, my cumulative equity might have
ended up 1-1.5x salary over a long career. But the downside was incredibly low
given the risk taken.

One caveat: since companies IPO so late now, to luck into it like I did, you
will likely have to find pre-IPO companies (but post having a non-insane biz
model) to achieve similar results.

Happy Hunting.

------
ryan-c
I worked at Palantir from 2009 to 2014 (started as SysEng, pivoted to
Infosec). I have only "taken home" enough to recoup the cost of exercising my
options and paying taxes (ugh, AMT), but my stock is worth something in that
range. A friend who started around the same time I did recently sold a little
less than half of his stock for about $500k to a private equity fund. I also
know of a few other non-executives who started before me who have cashed out
over $500k.

EDIT: If anyone's curious about selling pre-IPO stock, I have an email address
in my profile and would be happy to share some knowledge. Seems like there's
not much out in the open about it.

~~~
VictorF1962
Please call me in Arizona @ 602-418-4542 anytime Friday, March 20th to discuss
Pre-IPO Stock sales info. Thanks Victor..

------
ChuckMcM
Well in January of '95 I sold 1000 shares of Sun Stock that I had accumulated
over the employee purchase program the previous few years. Sure it was only
$35,000, this allowed me to purchase a car for cash rather than get a loan on
it. When I sold the car in '99 to a used car dealer I realized the same 1000
shares, 4 years later were worth $1.6M.

Granted at 1995 it wasn't a start-up any more, but it is an easy counter
illustration to the myth that "only founders make money." Granted, half or 3
of the 6 managers I had at Sun are actually quite well off with two being VC
partners these days and one enjoying their post work life.

~~~
hkarthik
Wow, talk about lost opportunity. I can only assume you're willing to talk
about leaving so much money on the table because you got some other windfall a
few years later!

~~~
ChuckMcM
Not sure why your getting voted down but once you've experienced the ups and
downs of equity value it gets to be quite noisy. So the car I sold to used car
dealer which I "paid" 1.6M for was replaced by another car I had bought using
some stock money I got from a company that had acquired my startup, when I
sold _that_ car 5 years later the stock used to buy the car was worth a bit
less than $400. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, but the reality was
"Hey, I've got a car and no car payments." which at the time was relevant.

The message is very much that getting "rich" doesn't really matter if you're
the founder or a later employee, and its pretty random with respect to
"skill". If you happened to be at Sun in the 80's and you sold your stock in
the late 90's you made a lot, if you kept it until Oracle bought the remains,
you made much less. Same stock different value. (and yes I had a wee bit of
stock left when Oracle bought them)

What I learned from that was that making money in the stock market was about
targeting a gain and capturing it. So when Facebook went public I bought some
at $18 and told my financial advisor to sell it if it ever hit $36 (which it
did of course). So for that part of my portfolio I made a bit more than a 100%
annual rate of return for that one stock. Its up to $81 today, at some point
it will likely be worthless. But for me, it took some of my money and doubled
it in less than a year. Good enough for me.

But the Ask HN post is about whether or not equity compensation is "worth it"
and the answer in the Bay Area has always been "yes". How much, or how little,
extra it is, varies but as long as you wait to exercise and make a profit (yes
you pay a bigger tax burden but its always a positive amount of money) it is
just "extra" money that you got in addition to your pay. It it worth to work
for stock _instead_ of pay? That is a much riskier deal and probably not if
you can't afford to pay your own bills independently. And do you have to work
at a "startup" to get a big boost out of equity value? Absolutely not.

~~~
hkarthik
Yeah not sure where the down votes are coming from, but I appreciate your
response and I think it's great advice for the folks in this thread.

When I was in my early twenties I scraped together about $5K which I was
planning to invest in the Google IPO and instead used it to buy my wife her
engagement ring. Today that stock might have been worth $50K or more.

So while some may see it as lost opportunity, I've enjoyed a wonderful
marriage for 10 years as a result of that decision, and I don't regret it one
bit.

------
TheMagicHorsey
Graduated from an Ivy League engineering program in the late nineties. Worked
in four different start ups. Never made any money. Of those four startups I
only count two as being valid data points as they were funded by "good" VCs.
The others were funded by rich people who in retrospect did not know what they
were doing.

Now on my fifth startup as employee number 15-20 (not sure which since we are
growing so fast). We are funding growth out of VC money. Good name brand VCs
that everyone here would be happy to take money from.

Still, I have learned my lesson. I make my life plans as though I can only
depend on my salary and my wife's salary. Luckily for me, my wife is a lawyer
from an Ivy and makes enough money that I don't worry about failing too much.

Even though most of my peers who graduated with me are independently wealthy
(Yahoo, Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), over the years I've learned to
moderate my life expectations. My wife and I don't expect to ever afford a big
house in Silicon Valley. Our long term plan is to move somewhere cheaper.

That is unless startup #5 succeeds in a big way ... HAHAHAHA lets not kid
ourselves. But its fun to imagine :)

~~~
slantedview
Good luck on your 5th startup. I always wonder for people in your situation
how long one can stick it out before decamping to somewhere more affordable to
start a normal life (house, kids, etc.)

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
Well life has not been hard. We live modestly by Bay Area standards: one old
car, eat out rarely, socialize with friends at home, vacation cheaply. But its
still a great life by the standard of anywhere else in the US or World. We
don't feel its a hardship to live here ... we have a small apartment, but not
small by NYC or European standards. Just small compared to my brother's
enormous American suburban home, for example.

We can't afford to raise teenagers here ... but we do plan to live here until
our first kid is 2 (kid not conceived yet ... just planning ahead).

~~~
spinlock
Size is definitely relative. I just visited my cousin in Georgia and my house
would fit in the play room he just added. He cleans carpet for a living.

------
ianstallings
Honestly I haven't seen _anyone_ in this industry get any significant money,
outside of investors and owners, since the dotcom days. Back then I knew quite
a few programmers that made a killing and still have money today from that
era.

Large money comes from ownership and the inherent risk. No one will ever give
you enough money to go away completely as an employee. Can you make a little
scratch? Of course. This industry pays very well. But if you want 500k and up
in lump sums? Being an employee is never going to make it happen imho.

And just for the record equity is not ownership. Go read up about all the
maneuvers businesses can and will take to screw you out of your shares and
you'll open your eyes. Businessmen don't give away anything they don't have
to. Just a reality. If you can navigate that minefield you may one day be the
outlier and get rich. But more likely you'll be fighting in court for years
only to learn that well, you should've read the fine print.

Don't get duped out here guys. Don't do this to get rich. Do this because you
_want_ to do it and everything else, with hard work, will fall into place.

~~~
tacos
This is a side effect of companies filling coffers via investors instead of
via customers. If you're part of a high growth company with reasonable
earnings, that sales multiple means you'll likely get a taste of the action.
If you're in a high growth VC funded company with no revenue, then that
multiple goes to the VC and maybe one or two people they might like to work
with again.

You can restate this via all sorts of dilution and complex shareholder classes
and endless paperwork and HN blogposts, but that's what it boils down to.

Chances are you're in a no-growth or modest-growth company so none of this
matters and you should read a basic business book from the 1960s instead,
serve your customers well, and charge a reasonable fee for the goods and
services you deliver.

~~~
swingbridge
Indeed. If the company is a "real business" with actual customers and real
profitable finances then those shares can be worth something.

If it's all a bunch of VC backed fluff, well then good luck. At that point
it's just a game of selling these virtual units to others wheeling and dealing
in similar pumped up virtual fluff. There are lots of ways the 'options'
holders get diluted and made irrelevant and are in effect just pawns that can
be made to work for less cash based on the, mostly, pipe dream that these
options will be worth something some day. One needs to be very careful if
you're in this bucket.

------
steven2012
I've been in the valley for ~20 years, and I've only made money on my options
once, about $250k on a company that had already ipo'ed a year before I joined.

That said, my wife and I earn a combined salary of just over $500k/yr, and I
much prefer this to stiking it rich via equity.

~~~
mmcconnell1618
Do you mind if I ask what types of jobs you and your wife have? I don't think
many software jobs pay $250k unless you're upper management. Physician or
legal partner maybe? Even with dual incomes $500k seems like an outlier but
maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
patio11
Recalibrate your expectations of Valley pay in engineering positions upward.
$250k is not outlandish in total comp (base + bonus + RSUs) for a 30ish
engineer at AmaGooFaceSoft.

If anyone wants to take bets on when that's a reasonably achievable starting
salary for a new Stanford CS grad my money is on 2020.

~~~
smeyer
I knew a Harvard CS grad with starting salary at AmaGooFaceSoft of
(base+bonus+RSUs) of between $200k and $250k, so I'd take the under on 2020 if
we're willing to take the upper end of reasonably achievable rather than the
standard offer at the big places.

------
honestfeedback
I spent ~3 years at Twitter (2010-2013) as an engineer and manager. Made a
competitive salary while there. Left with almost $2m in equity (ISOs + RSUs).

I sold the bulk of my position quickly due to serious concerns about tying the
bulk of my net worth to a single company's future.

After strike price, AMT, and income tax I ended up with roughly $1m in cash.
Probably could have been closer to $1.2m if I knew what I was doing tax-wise.

Not a reproducible pattern to be sure, but it was a nice outcome.

~~~
BadCookie
Stories like this one make me feel foolish. I recall not applying to Twitter
in 2008 partly because I thought that they were already too successful and
famous for the equity to be worth much. Clearly, I was mistaken. (It is a
small comfort that I probably would not have received an offer anyway, due to
my skills and experience level not being a great match for the open positions
that they had at that time.)

~~~
arasmussen
Go work at Uber :P

~~~
citizens
According to their angel.co page, they are not offering equity:
[https://angel.co/uber/jobs/](https://angel.co/uber/jobs/)

~~~
arkem
I don't know if they're offering equity at the moment but they were offering
it to engineers 18 months ago.

------
patio11
Facebook and Google both created literally thousands of millionaires, IIRC.
Bad news, though: power law distributions of startup returns have some really
toothy consequences for employees as well as for investors.

There exist some less famous answers I could give here but they would be
socially embarrassing to friends/colleagues. Let's put it this way: IPOs are
public, right? Each of them allocates 10%ish of the market cap to employees.
If you guessed employees 1 to 100 split half of that you wouldn't be insanely
off base. If 5% of market cap is $100 million...

Another thing you could do, if you're interested, is look up the Angels
participating in an early round in a recent startup and check out their
LinkedIn profiles. Most have an obvious tuple of (Company, Start Date) which
itself explains accredited investor status.

~~~
limeyx
IPO's are not public in the sense that they make public who gets what (except
at the top levels), they are an initial public offering of stock.

How many % is allocated to employees is a very complicated process depending
on how much dilution happens and if any down-rounds have happened, or funding
needed to be done in a rush (look at say Box ...)

I believe VC's generally want an options pool for non-founders/early employees
of around 15-25% but every company is going to be a bit different.

------
bilbo0s
"...I think it means, as all other aspects of life, there are distinct
clusters of people in this field, with little cross cluster exchange. Either
you are in that group in which all of you make money or you are in the group
that you and your friends none make much money...." -alimoeeny

This is probably the best take I've read on what is going on. There ARE people
who make a lot of money on equity, even as employees. The issue is that there
are a lot more people who make nothing. This is actually what is supposed to
happen. After all, most businesses fail.

If you made money through equity... then obviously the friends you worked with
at that company made money too. And if you didn't... then your friends, who
were at the same company, probably made nothing as well.

Just as a matter of full disclosure, I've had two SUPER nice exits. I got them
by NOT going out to Silicon Valley to try the internet startup route though. I
stayed in the midwest and went the medical imaging route. The thing is this,
there were't 1000 other companies doing the same thing. So the odds of winning
were much higher. So my personal advice would be to look at the KIND of
company you're getting equity from. Molecular Imaging startup??? Yeah...
you're probably gonna want as much equity as possible. Yet Another Consumer
Web/SmartApp startup??? Your odds of that equity being lucrative are much
lower, you should plan accordingly.

Either way, it's basically a lottery ticket. I got really lucky a couple of
times. Others won't. But it's basically all down to luck of the draw. I just
drew a straw from a pool with very few lots. Whereas the people in the Silicon
Valley-Web/SmartApp industry draw straws from a pool with millions of lots. In
both cases, luck is probably a pretty big factor.

------
hodder
Marco Arment appears to have done pretty well on the Tumblr aquisition.

"As for me, while I wasn’t a “founder” financially, David was generous with my
employee stock options back in the day. I won’t make yacht-and-helicopter
money from the acquisition, and I won’t be switching to dedicated day and
night iPhones. But as long as I manage investments properly and don’t spend
recklessly, Tumblr has given my family a strong safety net and given me the
freedom to work on whatever I want. And that’s exactly what I plan to do."

[http://www.marco.org/2013/05/20/one-person-
product](http://www.marco.org/2013/05/20/one-person-product)

~~~
swah
He also shared the numbers for his current project:
[http://www.marco.org/2015/01/15/overcast-sales-
numbers](http://www.marco.org/2015/01/15/overcast-sales-numbers)

------
alimoeeny
Another things that is interesting, is the diversity of responses on this
thread.

One saying "I've been here for long, I cannot remember of anybody" another one
saying, "of course I know plenty of people who made a lot of money".

I think it means, as all other aspects of life, there are distinct clusters of
people in this field, with little cross cluster exchange. Either you are in
that group in which all of you make money or you are in the group that you and
your friends none make much money.

~~~
ryan-c
I did say something to the effect of "I know plenty of people who made a lot
of money", but I also have lots of friends and acquaintances who haven't. Many
failed (or failing) companies, a few "small" exits.

------
rseanlindsay
Sure. I've been a part of several startups that have achieved liquidity events
and seen non-executive employees walk away with notable 6 figures in value.
One coworker was able to purchase a vacation home for over $500k with cash
from his post-tax proceeds, amongst other takeaways.

It happens, you just need a team that understands how to manage an equity plan
through fundraising, growth phases, org evolution and is motivated to create
value for everyone involved.

------
abstractbill
I was the first employee at Twitch, back in 2007. It worked out very well for
me, but - having watched the sausage get made - I'm very aware of how
incredibly lucky I've been. It could very easily have all come to nothing.

To be honest it's not something I'd ever advise someone to do, even though it
did happen to work out for me. I'd advise most people to join one of the big
giants and enjoy a predictably comfortable life, and those with a certain
temperament - like myself - to _found_ a company instead of joining one.

~~~
porter
What does "worked out very well" mean? Also, what do you mean by watching the
sausage get made? Not sure I follow.

~~~
ScottBurson
"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how
they are made." [0]

There have been many variations on this quote; the one I like best is "Those
who love sausage and democracy should not see either being made."

[0]
[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe)

------
quietone1
I was an mid-seniority employee and netted in the low eight figures when I
sold my equity stake after our IPO.

A couple important points I didn't see others mention: 1\. When I got an
offer, I asked if I could take a lower salary to get more equity. They said
yes.

2\. I pre-exercised all my options. So as far as the IRS was concerned, there
was no tax liability when I _exercised_ the shares. This meant by the time I
sold, it was a long term gain instead of a short term gain on a same-day
exercise+sell. Highest federal + CA income tax rate is 53%, so I would have
kept less than half if I didn't get to pre-exercise.

3\. I was able to sell when the Bush-era tax cuts were in place. So LTCG
federal + CA rate was 25% for me. If I sold those shares today, it would be
37%.

So it worked out for me, but I'm still an engineer and 99% of my coworkers
aren't rich - which means I don't talk about it, I don't flaunt it so no Lambo
in the parking lot, and I still try to nod in sympathy when they tell me about
how expensive private school or summer camp is for their kids. In other words,
my life hasn't changed much aside from my bank accounts.

~~~
aetherson
It is absolutely not true that there is no tax liability when you exercise
your shares, at least for commonly granted ISO stock options.

Here's a site on it:
[http://fairmark.com/execcomp/isoexer.htm](http://fairmark.com/execcomp/isoexer.htm)

Basically, there's no "regular" tax liability, but the difference between the
exercise price and the market price at time of exercise counts as income for
AMT, and so have a great day, you're gonna pay AMT that year if you do this
for any significant quantity of stock.

~~~
quietone1
You missed my point. By pre-exercising my ISOs and filing an 83(b) with the
IRS showing that the exercise price and the market price were in fact the same
when I exercised, the gain was zero, even for the purposes of AMT. Not
everyone will be so lucky to be in that situation where the prices match, but
I was.

------
fastaccount
I was approximately employee #500 at Facebook (mid-level engineer), sold the
stock pretty quickly after the IPO lockup ended. I left after 3.5 years. I
came out with around $2.5m after taxes.

If I had sold at an optimal time, and fully vested. I would have around $4.5m.
Almost everyone I know waited the full 4 years, but most did not wait for the
stock to appreciate due to fear of concentrated holdings.

------
Mc_Big_G
Consider the time frame in which these anecdotes took place. My understanding
is that most people "in the know" believe the environment has changed such
that you'll never get a early Facebook employee type payout anymore. Founders,
VCs and their lawyers have developed a plethora of tricks that disguise the
way you're getting screwed or ensure that, through some future trickery, you
will. You're best bet is to command a high salary worthy of your skills,
choose a company that has a culture you'll enjoy and assume that your options
are worthless.

~~~
GlickWick
This is definitely the case.

Sometimes you get lucky and get a mid 6-fig payout (me and a friend did in a
medium-sized acquisition), but most of the money I and most of my friends make
is from RSUs, high salary, and year-end bonuses that are actually somewhat
tied to company performance.

Playing the lottery is all well and good, but a stable high-paying job will
yield a higher EV.

Honestly, in this field, even a $1m payout isn't hugely life changing. By your
late 20s you should be making at least 150k/yr + bonuses/etc, and with proper
investment you'll be fine for retirement.

------
employee_equity
I joined a company in the summer of 2011 that IPOed in the spring of 2012.
Company was under 400 employees at the time (I was around #~380). The company
is not Facebook or Twitter.

My pre-IPO grants alone were worth over 1.5M, and my subsequent RSU grants
probably added another 1M on top of that.

I'm using a throwaway account for obvious reasons, but happy to answer any
questions. I definitely was not an outlier in terms of the payout.

~~~
jyu
What types of positions offer large pre-IPO grants? How were you hired?
(referral from friend already working there or were you headhunted or what?)
Were you aware of the IPO plans before applying, and is this the sort of
strategy that is repeatable?

~~~
employee_equity
I was just an individual contributor dev. I was hired as a referral, though
other folks we hired, even after me but before the IPO made out well.

I was aware of the IPO plans, though the price I was given was about 3x less
than what it ended up getting to after the IPO, and it's now 6x less. In that
sense, I was extremely lucky - if it had been at the original price and stayed
there, I don't think it would have been more than 500K.

Repeatable? Probably not, just given the luck involved. However, I think the
payout I was likely to get (200k-500k) was much more likely than getting the
same payout from a real startup.

~~~
jyu
The strategy being looking for pre-IPO companies that plan to IPO within 1 to
2 years. Targeting these types of companies allows you to get market
compensation with quite reasonable upside potential and seems a lot better
risk/reward profile than joining a "real" startup.

~~~
employee_equity
The main question to me is how generous the company is with its grants. I feel
like mine was very generous pre-IPO, as they pursued a retention strategy (not
wanting the typical exodus of folks when the lock up expires).

However, if a company is not generous, it's likely not a viable strategy.

My strong belief is that you should go work somewhere that you enjoy the work,
the people and you feel like you are being compensated appropriately. Getting
"rich" is pretty much pure "luck", IMO.

------
gpapilion
I would say as a general rule, you either need to be in the A round of
something REALLY big to survive dilution, for an acquisition. The alternative
is that you join a public company or soon to be, that will have a very high
market cap.

Big companies routinely pay equity packages in the $200k-$1m range for senior
people. Some just pay you in cash, and let you make the choice on how much
equity you're up for.

I've been in 3 liquidity events, one which was a nice bonus for 4 years, one
which I didn't get anything, and the last which has worked out very well for
me.

~~~
Eridrus
Could you give some more info on what typical dilution looks like from Series
A to an exit?

~~~
gpapilion
It depends on the structure of the deal, and varies. The larger worry for most
employees would be liquidation preferences. The investors tend to protect
themselves, and often times this requires a 2-3x return before an common stock
sees any money.

------
xxcode
yes - I was part of a recent acquisition and made a little over 4M (pretax). I
had 0.1% of the company. I was 24th employee (engineer). The company had 55
people at the time of acquisition. I joined about 14 months before the
acquisition.

~~~
burgreblast
Trying to think of what 55 person company sold for $4B. Was thinking Whatsapp
but you would have had more like $19M pretax at 1%.

edit: If vested. But after so short, only 25% vested. Congrats! Sounds like
there's more upside for you!

~~~
bradleybuda
Please don't try to deanonymize people who aren't sharing their own details -
individuals are being frank with personal, sensitive financial information in
this thread and that's a good thing.

~~~
charlesnw
It's the internet. People can do what they want. Everyone is in the pool.
Sharks and swimmers. If swimmers want to risk, sharks can bite. End of story.

I for one support the uncovering attempts. I'm attempting to do that myself on
all the stories as well.

------
diego
Several IndexTank employees did well. I can't tell you the exact numbers, but
some went from essentially zero net worth to owning property in the Bay Area.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/11/linkedin-buys-real-time-
hos...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/10/11/linkedin-buys-real-time-hosted-
search-startup-indextank/)

~~~
pokoleo
> owning property in the Bay Area.

Ah, the American dream. So attainable.

------
otterley
I'm now on my third startup that has IPOed (Zendesk). I've been relatively
lucky, but I also tend to eschew media and gaming companies; my perception of
the risk of long-term failure is higher for those. I prefer to work for B2B
and infrastructural companies that serve up-market customers and provide real
technological value (i.e. can't be easily copied), and my choice has served me
well thus far.

------
ryguytilidie
I've lived in the valley for like 7 years now and my only friends who have
taken a ton from equity are early Twitter folks and the few who sold their
startups to bigger companies like Google, Square, Twitter, whatever.

~~~
fideloper
My guess is that the answers will follow in this vein -- the huge rare success
stories, "household names" (at least to us?) are the prime (only?) examples.

------
TheGrassyKnoll
I joined a startup in the late 80's. By the top of the bubble in the spring of
2000, I had pre-tax equity on the order of ~$10 million. Pretty good for a
grunt in a cubicle. I was not a manager or any kind of super-star engineer.

Within a year, I was laid off and the stock had tanked 95%. I had broken all
the rules of investing and rolled up a nice pile, but eventually got burned
big time.

I would estimate my gross proceeds from stock sales at a little less than $1
million over about 10 years.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda...

~~~
fapjacks
Yes, this is also my story from the turn of the century. I still work in
startups, but also I jump out of planes for fun. Money like the kind in this
thread has nothing to do with my life choices anymore.

------
junk_underscore
As a fairly late hire at Twitch, my equity is somewhere between $500k and $1m.

~~~
ziiffo
Is this amount vested over 4 years after the acquisition?

~~~
junk_underscore
I have not been here 4 years, but that's the full amount assuming the current
Amazon price. I don't have any strong opinion about where Amazon's price is
headed.

A dead sibling comment claims that $0 is $0, which might be a relevant thing
to say if I had not vested any shares yet.

~~~
ziiffo
Not sure you answered my question. I was asking whether the $500k - $1m was
paid as a lump sum on acquisition.

~~~
junk_underscore
Sorry about that. I did not receive any lump sum. I have the standard options
setup and I received a (much smaller) equity grant that vests over 4 years
starting at the date of the acquisition.

------
pLZgyVVm8p
I joined a startup several years ago as an early engineer. The company was
acquired last year, and my equity was worth more than $1m after investors were
paid.

------
fixxer
I always go for salary first, equity second. So far, after half a dozen start-
ups, I haven't regretted that strategy.

~~~
joncalhoun
Not faulting your decision making process, but have you kept track of the
startups you declined offers from?

I would be curious if that paradigm changes in 10 years, not that I will
remember to ask you :D

~~~
fixxer
In the one case of a successful exit, I was able to pull off enough of a
salary bump that it more than compensated for what I could have gotten with
equity. There may end up being one that proves me wrong, but overall, I think
equity has generally been used as an excuse to push down salary.

I also have a family and they eat today, so my appetite for risk has been
lower. At 22, my decisions might have been different.

------
bigcothrowaway
Posting this under a throwaway for obvious reasons.

Employees at Facebook and Google who are high achievers (top 2-5% generally)
make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in equity. I am one such lucky
son of a bitch and know many others.

I'm well over 500k in cash after taxes at this point.

~~~
Rainymood
How does one even make 480k a year? I doubt it's 480k in pure cash. Do they
mean salary + market value of stocks?

------
nilkn
A somewhat dual question, can anyone offer advice on what to look for when
negotiating an offer with an early-stage startup with a view towards achieving
an outcome in this range? What are some red-flags in an equity offer that
suggest it won't be worth what it seems? What are some reasonable
stipulations/demands to make as the employee, to protect yourself and your
stake?

I've been told that there are so many loopholes that equity in the range of
half a percent or so is mostly worthless after dilution and taxes. But it
seems there are folks here saying they had equity in that range which was
worth a lot.

~~~
ryan-c
Ask if they allow early exercise, and do it if you can afford to. It will
probably be money down the drain, but it will save you a lot in taxes if
there's an exit. If you do not do it and the company takes off, exercise can
become unaffordable due to AMT, and you may feel "trapped" by your options.

------
joncalhoun
I don't know if you will see anyone openly stating how much they walked away
with, but you can do some basic math to figure out that this is very
plausible.

Take Stripe, valued at $3.5b[1]. $1m / $3.5 b ~= 0.029%, so any employee who
vested at least 0.029% (after dilution) is a paper millionaire, and chances
are their early employees have more than 0.029% equity vested.

[1][http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-02/apple-
pay-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-02/apple-pay-partner-
stripe-valued-at-3-5-billion-in-new-funding)

------
hellskitchendev
I don't know of anyone personally who got an exit like that but I do know
companies are staying private longer nowadays. This can increase the risk for
employees. EquityZen (where I work) is trying to make it easier for employees
to exit before their company has an liquidity event. This blog post explores
Fab and Aereo and how a big exit is not always guaranteed:
[https://equityzen.com/blog/learning-from-fab-and-aereo-
liqui...](https://equityzen.com/blog/learning-from-fab-and-aereo-liquidity-
matters/)

~~~
Eridrus
Do you guys have any data on what Series A -> Exit dilution looks like for
regular employees>

~~~
hellskitchendev
It really depends on the company and the terms of the investments they take
on. This is a little case study of what you equity might look like if you
joined Uber in 2012: [https://equityzen.com/blog/uber-employee-shareholder-
value-a...](https://equityzen.com/blog/uber-employee-shareholder-value-
analysis/) . It's a little outdated but it goes over some of the math you
would need to figure out what your shares would be worth.

------
alimoeeny
This is a very good question. I also want to know if there are examples other
than major successes like Google and Facebook.

One issue is when you want to hire people and you want to feel confident that
you are offering them a "real chance" for financial success, even if it is a
slim chance. I mean if you know that it is very likely that even when "you"
have a win (whatever your goal is) and your investors have a win, still your
employees don't benefit significantly, that will be a sad story.

~~~
limeyx
Yes. 99.9% of people will never have heard of the company I worked at that
IPO'd...

------
limeyx
Yes, again above the high end of that. Employee ~65 of a startup that raised
_very_ little money and IPO'd for over $1BN (over ten years ago now though ...
)

~~~
Eridrus
Would you mind disclosing at what stage of the process you got your initial
grant, and how much that grant was diluted along the way to IPO?

------
outsidetheparty
The first startup I worked for, back in the Ancient Days Of The Web, gave me
(employee #4, 5, or 6, depending on which of the three of us walked in the
door first) options that would have netted me low seven figures when the
company was gobbled up in the first bubble. Would have, had I exercised those
options before I quit the place and let them expire. So it goes.

The second time I had equity was a few years later, joining a much larger
company shortly before a terribly botched IPO. The next morning the CEO parked
his new Ferrari right next to the employee entrance; the rest of us were stuck
with a strike price well above the current valuation. My options eventually
peaked out at ~$300K value, but were underwater for years; in theory I could
have made far more just buying the stock like any old yutz off the street, if
I'd had any expectation that the company would recover, which I didn't.

The third time, well, ask me again in a couple years and we'll see how it
turns out. It'd be nice, of course, but I'm not counting on it.

My advice: * Be an early employee, preferably during a bubble. (Now is
probably good.) * Exercise your options. * Never park your shiny new sports
car where your employees can see it.

------
notimetotalk
I used to work for Yahoo M&A (hence the throwaway account). When we did the
acquisitions under Marissa we valued the engineers at around $1M each. Most
acquihires ended up getting $1M+ vested over 3-4 years. I'm no longer there.

------
babababa
Throwaway account.

Our start-up was acquired by famous bigco after 2 years. ~20 of us were in the
company. Every single person is making >$500K, 16 of 20 are making >$1.5M, and
7 of 20 are making >$2M. The founders likely made much more.

Few things to note: \- The team didn't take big salary cuts to join the start-
up - salaries were pretty much in line with large companies \- Most people
were at start-up for less than 1 year when acquired \- Four years needed to
get the full payout at bigco

Although salaries were fine, the employee equity made all the difference on a
good->great outcome. The start-up was enterprise focused, and built
innovative, new technology. The team worked really hard and was focused.

Pretty much beat all my university classmates on outcome including the ones
that joined Google/Facebook/etc.

------
JoeAltmaier
Dell bought ConvergeNet, which made a fibre-channel virtual storage device. At
the time their stock price was >$50. By the time I could sell, it was half
that. So I didn't 'take home' as much as I'd have liked to. But on paper it
looked good for a while.

------
pythoncloner
I'm 24 now and made $900 pretax in FB (no college loans).

I think i'm lucky that i joined Facebook after IPO but when the stock was very
low. My new grad offer was $280k (negotiated like a VC with tons of counter
offers from GOOG, DropBox, etc...) and stock was $19 the day i had joined
around Sep 2012. So, i got ~14000 FB shares. I sold all my vested
shares(~11000 [9500 vested on my base offer and 1500 out of my refresher
grants over last 2 years) at $80 very recently and leaving the company for $1M
offer with a startup.

Total Money i made pre-tax: $900k. Bought a Porsche and chilling out in LA for
a month now before my next gig. Everyone call me as a lucky kid.

~~~
SeoxyS
I'm actually very curious what startups gives you a $1M offer, and in what
position. The most I've seen is grants that are worth up to $500k at day 1
valuation.

------
salariedman
I joined an enterprise data storage company in the Bay Area in 2012 about 2
years before IPO as a software engineer. Company went IPO in late 2013 and
total value of initial grant over 4 years is currently around $800k.

------
technologia
My first startup job put me barely at the beginning of the range you're
talking about. Honestly I thought we could have made it further on our own but
I didn't really have much of a choice, but in retrospect it probably was the
best thing we could have done for ourselves and our other employees.

I guess the working hard for 5-10 years bit and taking it easy for the rest of
your life is fine and all, but I think I would go insane if I didn't have work
to do.

------
2pasc
I did a blog post about that: [http://2pasc.com/2012/05/18/the-power-law-of-
startup-employe...](http://2pasc.com/2012/05/18/the-power-law-of-startup-
employees/)

Overall - it depends when you get in, and its valuation potential at exit.
Companies with 10B-100B+ exits can create hundreds to thousands of
millionaires. Companies that exit at 200-500M, much less, obviously!

------
growupkids
The first startup I worked for, after taxes, made me over 1m and I was
employee 42.

~~~
Eridrus
Would you mind disclosing at what stage of the process you got your initial
grant, and how much that grant was diluted along the way to the final exit?

------
xxcode
The average engineer who joined square about 3 years ago has made more than 2M

~~~
limeyx
But is that cash in the hand or "paper" money ?

------
nicholasdrake
a lot of top engineers are understandably going ot be risk-averse about taking
low-salary for equity in a company that most likely will not work out... this
however is not good for vc firms, because for their investments to work out
they need to be able to hire the best hackers (away from places like google
and facebook) . this makes me thikn there might be value in vc firms having
hackers on their books, hired guns if you will. where the hacker gets a stable
income from the vc firm and multiple attempts at joining different start-ups..
across each individual hackers' 2/3 attempts annd the portfolio of hackers,,,,
the massive ten million dollar options could be spread around a bit more, to
make it more attractive for top hackers to take the risk and join a start-up

crucially this would also allow investors to take some of the sunk cost risk
out of funding a start-up which is the employees wages..

~~~
taude
I'm not convinced that top-funded tech companies don't still pay great
salaries AND give a small smattering of stock options....to keep the employees
motivated and to attract the level of talent they need to succeed.

~~~
nicholasdrake
yeah it's difficult to tell... the narrative from all the vcs is it's all
about the team, pg even goes as far to say that if you choose good people even
if they initially have a bad idea they'll pivot out of it... but given the
high percentage of start-ups that fail would seem to suggest that a lot of
'teams aren't up to it' i.e. there is a lack of talent going into start-ups...
if that's the case it doesn't seem unreasonable to think some of that talent
might be in big lucrative jobs at established technology companies

------
throwaway1122
I was an employee #15-30 range of a small startup and got around $200k out of
options and $1.3M of additional RSU upon acquisition. I've more or less kept
all of my equity. Because the parent company did well, they're currently worth
roughly $2.5M post tax (and I'm hoping the parent company continues to do
well).

~~~
loumf
If you had $2.5 million cash, would you put it all into one company? Even if
you like crazy growth stocks, there's an index fund for that.

This is about risk reduction and wealth preservation -- going for expected
value maximization is not a good idea when you only get one shot.

~~~
wonderthrowaway
Bah...if you had skills that could guarantee you could retire at 55, and
equity that might let you retire at 30 (best case) or 45 (worst case), why not
take the chance if you believe in your work, your company and your mission?

If you know what your company is making is bullshit, then by all means bail as
soon as you can. If it is important work, then the risk is far less.

~~~
loumf
2.5 million in a well managed (even conservative) portfolio is practically
guaranteed to be enough for retirement in 10 years with passive oversight. You
would be adding to it with savings as well.

I guess if you're hell bent on being all in, I'd recommend some kind of
insurance in the form of a Put option that you hope expires worthless
(assuming this is a public company).

------
taybin
It's a good question. My bias is that it often does not, and that the current
investors make sure it does not. However, it also isn't in people's interest
to advertise that they have a lot of money suddenly, so I'm not sure we'll see
some good answers here.

------
strlen
Yes, I joined a company fairly late in its history (just two years before its
IPO), ended up in the lower end of that range, despite doing nearly everything
wrong from financial POV: stayed for roughly 3 years (didn't fully vest the
initial grant), sold large portion of the stock right after the lock-up
expired, and so on.

I know plenty of other folks with similar stories: they also joined a mid-
sized, yet fast-growing (in terms of both company size and revenue) private
companies, ended up doing well financially.

There's a catch, however: this isn't a "get rich quick" scheme, in fact
neither myself nor any of the people I know made the decisions they did _for
the sake of money_: my own choice had more to do with interesting work, great
team, applying my skills at greater scale, and so forth. Lot of folks told me
that joining said company was "just too late"; I also considered it as such
(thinking of options -- if they were to become worth anything -- as a nice
potential bonus, but not a life-changing event).

I don't like giving advice, but here are some heuristics (YMMV, none of this
is universal):

1) Don't treat equity so cynically as to never take an offer that offers
slightly lower title/salary/etc... vs. the others _especially_ if there are
other great reasons to take the "lower title/base pay, but higher equity"
offer.

2) On the other hand, don't over-optimize for equity such that one ends up
with high percentage of equity but of little or overall negative value. This
value can be financial (simply put, if a company is less generous with equity
it means they think it's worth _something_), but more importantly it can be in
terms of missed learning and growth opportunities. I hate to jump on the "too
many SELECT ajax FROM php startups" bandwagon -- I happen to work for one that
is _very far from that, and yes we're hiring! -- but there are plenty of
startups that don't offer much technical depth, or (for non-technical-folks)
don't do anything terribly interesting business-wise, either.

3) The two anti-patterns I've seen in Silicon Valley are folks _never_ working
in smaller teams AND folks trying to get in "as early as possible" for the
sake of... "getting in as early as possible" (treating all startups
interchangeably, etc...). Good people and interesting work can be found in
companies of _any_ size: don't pass up these opportunities just because the
company seems to be too bi _or_ too small. In the end, the compensation (not
just financial/equity, but also choice of projects/responsibilities) company
N+1 will offer will depend on what you can bring to the table, which in turn
depends on what you've learned at companies {0,..., N}

------
mathattack
I've known multiple "employees" who have gotten 10X that.

Some of the stories:

\- In 3 years before a big IPO to turn around sales at a non-tech company.

\- A few 10x (100x?) engineers who joined Apple around 2000 and 2001, sticking
around for the long ride up.

\- Junior Engineer (~Employee #30) at a big ERP company that had a massive IPO
a few years later.

In most of the cases they were expecting "new house" money rather than "new
life" money. In all the cases, they are still doing roughly the same jobs
before the windfall. In all but the last case they were very talented
workaholics surrounded by similar minded folks. Of course they also lucked
into the right opportunity.

------
jedberg
I've worked for startups and for public companies. All of my equity success
(into and past your range) has come from my stock options in the public
companies I have worked for. The startups have netted me exactly 0 thus far
(but the jury is still out).

------
pythoncloner
Just accepted an offer of $150k base and $1M in stock options from one of hot
startups in SF. I will update here if the startup makes it to IPO in next few
years and i made real money more than $500k and stock market does not crash in
2016.

------
Splendor
This post may benefit from having 'Ask HN:' in the title.

------
taude
Can we count being paper millionaires for a while?

------
RustyRussell
Seems there would be work for a clued up lawyer to advise early hires on their
employment contracts. Do such people exist?

------
sergiotapia
Microsoft was an example where it's owners became billionaires and they're
employees became millionaires.

------
blawa
Well, its a company that its fashionable to hate on on ycombinator, but
[http://gizmodo.com/5019527/bill-gates-made-men-the-wild-n-
cr...](http://gizmodo.com/5019527/bill-gates-made-men-the-wild-n-crazy-
ventures-of-the-microsoft-millionaires)

~~~
stevenspasbo
That list left off Gabe Newell.

------
bbcbasic
I notice all the answers so far are in the US. Any UK or Australia stories to
keep my hope up?

Interesting to see 250k is a realistic salary for a developer as well. I never
see any jobs anywhere near that in the UK or Australia - except maybe London
as a contract developer in finance.

------
michaelochurch
I know of a couple, but it's rare. You're much more likely to make money in a
hedge fund. Year-end bonuses (profit-sharing) are a much better model, at
least for employees, than startup equity, which is usually a retention carrot
for after the company is bought and dies. Unless you become an executive, you
have to get very lucky to have that kind of outcome.

The million-dollar houses are mostly being bought by investors and well-
connected career startup executives who take almost no risk. Engineers are
renters in the Valley.

~~~
slantedview
Not all engineers are renters, and not all renters want to rent forever.

The current median price for a 3 bedroom single family home in Mountain View
(just picked a random valley town) is 1.275 million. Aside from the fact that
this is INSANE, this is what the average engineer might spend on a decent
starter home. It's not just executives (though it's still insane).

~~~
shostack
Making it more insane is that the price you quoted could very well be for a
not-so-nice home east of Central that has quite a bit of section 1 to address,
not great schools, etc. Anything further west that is big enough for 3br in
Mountain View will quite likely be north of $1.3.

FML.

