> A lot of it has to do with who you work with. In every case I can think of, windfall money for employees came from founders with a track record of accomplishi

> A lot of it has to do with who you work with. In every case I can think of, windfall money for employees came from founders with a track record of accomplishing that (or, in my case, a founder who would soon develop that track record, and was, in the company I was at, extremely committed to making sure his team was well compensated at liquidity). This. I am the founder of OpenFeint which was acquired a few years ago for ~$100M. Many of my early employees there got into the range you mentioned. But I also had to work incredibly hard to make sure that every one of the 60 people at the company got compensated at some level. It's very easy for people at the table during a transaction to focus on themselves... most people do. A good founder will constantly fight for his/her team.