[brudgers]

Any non-controlling non-preferred equity in a privately held company is worth only what the controlling interests give it via good-will. Controlling interests can always liquidate a company to themselves for a nominal price or award themselves preferred stock or pay themselves absurdly inflated salaries or rent office furniture from themselves or their spouses or anything else that allows them to move money from one pocket to the other while taking a cut on the transaction. And that's before you get to Private Equity/Venture Capital whose business consists largely of extracting as much value from a company for themselves as is possible.

That's not to say everyone is ruthlessly sociopathic. But only that the odds of turning equity into cash are lower than the odds of a startup having a successful exit and to suggest that it is quite possible for people to optimize their slice of the pie when the pie is filled with serious money.

Finally, on a $4 billion exit 0.7% versus 1% versus 2% isn't going to have a dramatic effect on your lifestyle. Same is true at $40 million.

Good luck.