[ghshephard]

That's extraordinarily strange - in general, the founders will always get a bonus when a company is acquired. The only scenario in which I've not seen that happen, is when they've left the company - in which they are treated like any common shareholder - they are wiped out if the preferred liquidation preference isn't covered - but, of course, that's precisely why the common is valued at 1/10th of the preferred early on - because it really is worth much less.

The one scenario I've seen where founders who have left the company still get a "consulting" fee during a liquidation, is where they held enough common shares to cause issues during a lawsuit over minority shareholder rights - but typically the employees/founders still with the company being acquired have enough shares to not make it an issue - and, as I noted earlier, it's almost always the case that founders still with a company being acquired get some type of bonus, even if it's a retention fee.