> The OP was asking why employees can make nothing during an acquisition, Right, and one of the ways that can happen is that founders do not have preference an

> The OP was asking why employees can make nothing during an acquisition, Right, and one of the ways that can happen is that founders do not have preference and their stock goes to nothing with the rest of the common (e.g. an equity group has your debt and 2x preference, they get almost all of the sale price). But to keep the founders on side and "cohesion" through the transfer, they are offered money outside of the equity sale in the earn out terms. If all goes well they still make ok/good money on the deal, but none/little of it is from their equity. If you are engineer #47 you may or may not have a job after the acquisition but your equity value just vanished.