[drc500free]

It's kind of like going to vegas for a week and coming out with a lot of good stories and 90% of your money.

In terms of investor return, I think it's healthy to have some exits like this. A bunch of the money was only in for 2 years, and probably doubled their investment in that time. The rest of the investors got their money back, with something close to NASDAQ returns on top of it. If this was the baseline for the fund instead of going to zero, you wouldn't need unicorns and the questionable growth tactics that go with them.

If founders had 25%, they got "retirement with reasonable luxuries" or "gunpowder to play investor" money of double digit $millions.

If 20-25 employees split an option pool of 15%, it's close to replacing the FAANG opportunity cost.

So totally agree that it's a bit of a "meh" outcome in comparison to financial alternatives, and the pie splitting matters a lot. But it didn't go to zero, and everyone is within a stone's throw of their stock market / FAANG hurdle rates (and it's not like that FAANG career is guaranteed for people who thrive better at startups). And the stories and experiences are a hell of a lot better.

[alexawarrior]

Without insider knowledge of the transaction, it is impossible to say what the returns were for various tranches of investment or for the founders or employees.