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).
Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
181–190 of 207 posts
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#182I 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…
This is the most thoughtful, balanced answer in this thread. Kudos.
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.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#183I 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…
Hero.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#184I 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).
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.
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.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#185Earlier 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.
>nut up It would be nice if people on Hacker News would not use phrases like this.
There's a button for that.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#186Earlier 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.
> 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. Quite contrary, the opposite is true: the "1 out of every 10" companies you hear about are the companies where founders resisted opportunities to sell early, which grew to a size where millionaires continued to be minted even after the IPO. Some VCs have even refused to…
>Some VCs have even refused to permit early sales that would have made the founders comfortable (i.e., 1-5mm per founder): while top-tier VCs _won't_ do that (that would make founders who have their pick of VCs be reluctant about accepting their funding), it's probably not the best idea in the world to take substantial amount of VC funding without even considering the possibility of building a public company.
Why? If the odds really are 1 in 10 (I suspect they are lower than this) and you only have a couple of chances to do a start-up in your life then why risk it all on the chance of getting big? The hedonistic value of money has a pretty steep fall.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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.
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).
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#188[deleted]
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#189Just 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.
Re: Any stories of employees with equity successfully taking home over $1m? $500k?
#190I'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.