I used to work for a startup, Kenan Systems, that was 100% owned by one of the founders. In 1999, Lucent bought Kenan Systems for over <dr-evil>one billion dol

I used to work for a startup, Kenan Systems, that was 100% owned by one of the founders. In 1999, Lucent bought Kenan Systems for over <dr-evil>one billion dollars</dr-evil>. Obviously, all the Kenan employees had understood from the time they were hired that they were not getting stock options, but there was still some grumbling about how they didn’t share in the jackpot. (Well, after the acquisition, we did get stock options... Lucent stock options... which, like the Kursk, went underwater and never resurfaced.)