Acquisitions are probably much more unpredictable than actual successful IPOs. I guess the investors will always need to have their preferred shares repaid firs

Acquisitions are probably much more unpredictable than actual successful IPOs. I guess the investors will always need to have their preferred shares repaid first, and the exit price might even be lower than the last valuation. I have a friend who joined Snowflake at a pretty late stage and can still get enough money to retire, if he fully vests his options. Though of course, this is very much luck-based and he had no idea what he was getting himself when he joined just a couple of years before the IPO.