[est31]

> "hitting" is $100-200M acquihire. 0.1% of that is only 200K.

Note that there are liquidation preferences so it's usually not as simple as that. If 100M had been invested at 1x liquidation preference, investors hold 33% and the startup is sold for 150M, then they'd only get 50M from their shares so they'll likely execute their right to get their investment back (at the expense of their shares, let's assume the deal includes this). So the 100M gets distributed among the investors and the 50M gets distributed among the remaining shareholders who hold the other 66%. For a 0.1% shareholder from that group this would mean a 75k payout instead of 150k that your calculation would give.

[m0zg]

Yes, I'm aware of this little nuance - I've been through startup equity meat grinder myself. It's too complicated to quickly explain to a layperson though, and deliberately so. Many people are working for startups not knowing that they'll get bupkis if those startups succeed. I'd venture to say easily the majority. Many founders on HN try to pretend they won't negotiate their often abusive equity offer terms with their best employees (a lie - they will) because that requires "board approval". Most of them are also not huge fans of prospective employees hiring a lawyer to review the equity offer, to at least understand how the employee is being screwed.