The company’s first 10 employees will receive an average of $6.2 million in cash; the first 30 will receive an average of $3.3 million in cash, and the rest of the 178 employees will each receive $371,000.
This is good money that anyone would be thrilled to get, but I was surprised it was not more on a $1.1 billion exit. Although if you do the math, that’s about half of one percent ownership for the first 10 employees, which is probably pretty typical.
It goes to show you that the startup dream of fantastic wealth is extremely hard to obtain. There aren’t many $1 billion+ exits and while $6 million is thrilling and life changing, it’s not retire-for-the-rest-of-your-life-and-spend-money-as-you-wish kind of money. Tumblr employee #2 confirms that. And for the rest of the 178 employees? They can at least pay for the kids to go to college.
Living It 