[Timothee]

That might be true but I find 0.2%, thus $500k for a $250M valuation, still very low.

$250M valuations are quite an achievement already and $500k, while it will pay off a mortgage, is not life-changing. (not talking out of experience here :)) So, an early engineer who will most likely be very instrumental to bringing the company to such a valuation ends up with a(n admittedly very) nice bonus, while founders do end up with life-changing wealth.

[harryh]

Ya, I was just saying that is sounds like dman wasn't even getting "standard" offers. I wasn't really weighing in on whether the "standard" offer makes sense or not. It's a challenging question.