[johnward]

I took a below market salary to work for a startup. When we were acquired I ended up with about 8 grand. I was kind of exciting because I honestly didn't think that the equity in my contract would be worth anything. Founders made something like 24m, 26m, and 8m. I handful of early employee my have made a couple hundred k. I still have all of the paperwork and I believe there were a handful of employee millionaires. I joined late and missed out on a big pay day. Do I wish I got more? YES. Do I think I deserve more? Probably a little bit more than 8k but I didn't put go through the early grind and put in the same work they did. I helped the company grow to acquisition though.

The thing about the startup lottery is that in the small chance your startup wins it, that doesn't mean you'll also win.

Founder did take the whole company on a tropical vacation which was unexpected and even paid partially for spouses.

[nilkn]

At the bare minimum, wouldn't you have deserved whatever the discrepancy was between the below-market salary they offered you and the market salaries you could have gotten elsewhere, aggregated over the years you were at the startup? I'm guessing that would be more than $8k in total.

You also had to deal with the post-acquisition career turmoil of either losing your job or having to work for the acquiring company, neither of which would have happened had you taken a market salary at a larger company.

[johnward]

I wish. I took the position because my previous position was so terrible that I was taking the first offer someone shot my way. Had I not been so desperate and naive I may have negotiated for more salary or equity. I did manage a 43% raise post acquisition (still below market). I wish I would have put the whole 8k into the Tesla IPO too but I can't go back in time.

[walshemj]

You know that the latest employee 5 year share scheme at British telecom a mature FSE 100 company returned well over £60K effectively tax free with zero risk to your capital?