It's very common to sell stock at > 30x exercise price when you get into a growing company at the right time. A lot of imponderables in that, and all of that risk is borne by you. You end up making VCs and founders rich: they get to sell stock at even higher multiples, and at much lower risk: they get to sell on the day of IPO, and they also get preferred shares, which have more protections (founders used to have Common Stock only, as the article states, but that has changed, and they also get to sell stock during intermediate financing rounds, which also considerably reduces their risk).