I totally lucked into it. I was basically a new college grad and joined just before the IPO was announced. The equity was awarded to me was pretty small compare

I totally lucked into it. I was basically a new college grad and joined just before the IPO was announced. The equity was awarded to me was pretty small compared to some of the equity earlier employees received. So the company gave me a second much bigger grant just before the IPO. I contributed little to what got the company to the IPO. Maybe a charitable way to see it would be that the company saw potential in me. And like you said, they have huge bags of money to give away anyways because of the IPO so maybe it didn't matter as much to them. I just felt super lucky and undeserving. I did end up staying a long time at the company though and I did end up doing well and contributing post IPO. But I did appreciate someone taking a chance on me initially.