Well, maybe it isn't a "windfall" to someone who lives in the tech world and comes to expect such good fortune and thinks their effort should be rewarded in an outsized way. I'm sure we think it's deserved in a relative sense.

But it is most definitely a windfall to the rest of the world (even the rest of the country), who work equally hard, under worse conditions, for their entire lives and cannot even hope to earn say 1/5 the wealth that a tech worker can accumulate after his/her first job.

To have a payday of millions of $ fall out of the sky, for toiling the same as others trying to make a living, yet also being lucky to be in the right place and the right time to have it rewarded.

It's almost like startups have non technical workers that also have an equity stake in the companies they work for. This comment strikes me as almost entirely out of touch. No one expects these results, most people never see a startup they work for successfully exit let alone to the tune of billions.

"Being in the right place at the right time" sure it's partly that but if you think you're getting there without some really hard work you'd be sorely mistaken.

Also startups everywhere need good folks to work for them it's not like this is some secret club to get into, many people just have no risk tolerance for one reason or another.

You're line of thinking really get's at me because the reality is a lot more than luck goes into things even if the current popular line of thinking is to suggest otherwise.

Especially on a community that was established initially to talk about startups.

Everyone works hard, and yes some work harder than others. And no one is saying that tech workers randomly won the lottery and should shut up and just be grateful.

But to imagine that suddenly having the fruits of your labor yield 10-100x the wealth that others in life can ever hope to produce, and think that it's just your hard work and not a function of having been blessed both with good talents and an environment in which your value can be exploited -- is sheer arrogance not to acknowledge that. Or be offended that someone points it out. What does being on HN have to do with keeping a sense of reality? We need to create a protective bubble of thought that doesn't offend millionaires?

As Warren Buffett has said, "I was born with a talent for capital allocation. If I had been born in rural Africa, my talents might never have given me the wealth I have today. I would not be so different from my secretary. Our positions might even be reversed. I thank America for that difference."

Maybe the word windfall triggers you in a way that suggests it should be taken away and you didn't "deserve it". No one said that. Yet also, everyone in such a fortunate position tends to grow to think they deserve it fully as a result of their talents and work. When in fact an objective person should see how much the factors have aligned to give you this gift.

Just because you read HN doesn't mean you are exempted from realizing how lucky you are. We're not that much of a bubble I hope.

I think we may be passing each other on the word tech workers -- do you mean everyone who works in a tech company, including customer support, sales, marketing, operations etc or are you defining tech workers as just the people who work with tech, ie engineers, analysts etc. and possibly on the accessibility and rarity because pretty much anyone can get hired at a startup and most startups fail.

Most people in startups are not lucky (relatively to others in the US economy of similar job positions) they actually generally make less than people in established companies and if they don't have a favorable exit are almost always numerically worse off than those who chose the stable path.

The reason I see people typically working in startups is more impact, freedom, the ability to quickly level up etc, but unless your company exits and you get paid from that exit no dice.

I've had friends who's shares were worth less than they paid for them when their company had an exit.

I continue to work in startups because I really find satisfaction in it, (right now trying to get my own off the ground) but I would triple my total compensation as an employee in most cases if I went to go work for one of the big players and that compensation is a real tangible thing not anywhere close of a gamble. It's actually somewhat of a problem right now in how do founders attract good talent for that reason.

I think you simply have an inaccurate picture of the majority of startups and the types of money in them.

I don't know, yes maybe we're just misinterpreting each other.

I take the original comment at its word -- having to do with those workers for whom a "windfall" however you define it, is life-changing.

The windfall typically isn’t anywhere close to millions of dollars for regular employers. We’re talking about payouts on the level of buying a new car or placing a down payment on a home.

I think you meant regular employees? From my limited experience, the windfall is actually much more than a new car or down payment and can reach into the millions of dollars if the stock rises a couple hundred percent. Most of the unicorn startups that have gone IPO were offering stock options close to or above the million dollar range for senior engineers. Don’t forget the refreshes. The big limiter is actually taxes which take close to half.

For options, taxes only become a big limiter if one waited for the value to rise substantially from the strike price, thus creating a large spread that will be taxed as income. If shares are purchased as they vest and held for over a year, the gains will be subject to much more favorable long term tax treatment when sold.

Larger companies will typically switch to RSUs, which get taxed like income, and isn't great for a non-liquid asset. Thats what double-trigger RSUs solve, by not having the employee own the shares until a liquidity event, they won't need to pay taxes on them until it happens. The catch is that now the employee needs to hold onto the shares for a year to get a more favorable tax treatment.

Taxes will really only take close to half if employees insist on selling their shares in less than a year.

Interesting, I just thought a windfall meant "a lot of money at once", but it looks like you're right that it implies luck. So agreed, a different word would be more accurate here.

But obviously some element of luck is present here. Unless we're willing to say that the success or failure of the merger is entirely on how hard each employee worked.

I mean, nobody reasonably joins a startup and expects to make buku bucks. It’s “unexpected good fortune” from my perspective, and certainly seems to qualify as a windfall.

"Buku"? Beaucoup?

Yes, it's an intentional misspelling