[elefont2]

How many people actually have a net worth > $30 million due to stock options from a Silicon Valley startup? Assuming a billion dollar exit, you would need 3% equity (post dilution) to end up with that net worth, or 5% if you want that net worth after-taxes. The average startup is going to have maybe 2-5 people with that level of equity. There aren't that many billion dollar exits, so my gut is that the total number across all startups in the last 5 years isn't going to be more than about 1000.

I would guess the number of wall street traders with a net worth > $30 million would be higher.

Does anyone know of any real statistics on that?

[cover_drive]

Hard to get any stats on this, but it would be indeed interesting to see. In the valley, there are also quite a few 9-digit exits with 2-digit equity percentages. My gut is that in today's scenario, the Silicon valley count would be higher.