[spamizbad]

For a product built by 2 people it was enough for both of them to retire (albeit humbly) or seed a more ambitious company.

Anyway, their best move was to take the money. They gambled that, even after noticing their work and our customer's feedback, we wouldn't turn around make our product better. They lost that bet.

[HWR_14]

That sounds about where I was thinking. You have to imagine that you're not paying as much for the product as a sign on bonus for the talent that has demonstrated the ability to improve the value of your product quite a bit over the four years of being locked in.

[Dylan16807]

Enough money to retire on sounds even more like an "insanely high amount" when I think of it as a sign-on bonus.

[HWR_14]

I assume that means that the offer is the company purchased for just under 2 million dollars. Maybe a bit more, maybe some seed investors take a small percentage. Let's assume each founder takes almost a million dollars. I would understanding feeling weird paying almost 2 million for something that I can get done with 6 man-months. That is a lot of money! Enough to retire humbly or seed their next start up. But it's also something they will only get (or only get most of) over a 4-year vesting period.

So it's a 250k/year boost. That's again a lot. But that difference might also be what they can make at Google instead of a startup salary-wise.

But think about who they are hiring. People who have proven they can find new places to add value.

I'm making up numbers. But the point is that if you think about selling the next four years of your life (and not just the time spent on the company already), it is certainly reasonable and might be a good outcome. But it also might be worth turning down.

But maybe my guesses are totally off. Maybe he meant "retire humbly but continue to live in SF" instead of "take your money and retire to a ranch somewhere"