Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 207 posts

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#171

Post by 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.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#172

Post by staunch »

bcg1 wrote: post #78
tptacek wrote: post #16

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,…

I'm new here. Can you summarize "Paul Graham's hacker startup thesis?" for me? (Or point me to an appropriate manifesto, whatever). Would like to read your last sentence in context... thanks

http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

http://paulgraham.com/swan.html

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#173

Post by maerF0x0 »

tptacek wrote: post #31
_abattoir wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

>and the evidence overwhelmingly suggests that their intentions are (a) good and (b) founder-aligned.

But the characteristic we're looking for here is employee aligned. Founders can make out like bandits whilst the employees find out the hardway what their contracts really mean.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#174

Post by charlesnw »

bradleybuda wrote: post #101
burgreblast wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

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.

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.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#175

Post by kamaal »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #26

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 counte…

I guess this is why if you stand to make small profits by selling something against making a wild profit at a later stage albeit with a lesser chance of it happening. You must chose the latter.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#176

Post by employee_equity »

jyu wrote: post #144
employee_equity wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#177

Post by nyrulez »

quietone1 wrote: post #165

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…

Interesting reply - 8 figures is enough for taking a break and do other things. Is there a reason you've still stuck to being an employee ?

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#178

Post by slantedview »

michaelochurch wrote: post #76

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 invest…

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).

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#179

Post by arkem »

citizens wrote: post #163
arasmussen wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go work at Uber :P

According to their angel.co page, they are not offering equity: https://angel.co/uber/jobs/

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

Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?

#180

Post by illumina »

tptacek wrote: post #16

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 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.

I am the founder of OpenFeint which was acquired a few years ago for ~$100M. Many of my early employees there got into the range you mentioned. But I also had to work incredibly hard to make sure that every one of the 60 people at the company got compensated at some level. It's very easy for people at the table during a transaction to focus on themselves... most people do.

A good founder will constantly fight for his/her team.

Post reply on HN