hey mate, just wanted to say sorry about how life turned out, you're at least in a position where you can do something else if you wanted to...most people are not. I know, it's small comfort.

My first startup, 3.5 years of blood and tears, literally walked away with nothing (internal politics). No equity, I couldn't afford to exercise my options.

Also, wanted to quickly add, i also had to pay out thousands in legal advice to even keep my options! we didn't even get proper option certificates in the years i was there...place was a mess.