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Low millions probably means low ones-of-millions, which is non-fuck-you money in return for a situation which you'd probably want to say fuck-you to, at least if you believe the general sense around here that Google's status as the ultimate hacker's mecca has begun to fade.

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Low ones-of-millions - say $2M - is still enough to last 20 years at $100K/year (not counting taxes, but also not counting interest). Most decent entrepreneurs ought to be able to come up with another viable startup within 20 years, so for most practical purposes, it basically is fuck-you money. You won't be able to never work again, but you have enough of a financial cushion that you never have to work for another person again.

you're not taking into account short-term capital gains tax

Yeah, but startups, for most founders, are a HUGE schlep. And, the return on the schlep is nonlinear in the size of the schlep; it's more like exponential, assuming you keep winning your rolls of the dice. And, the n+1th roll of the dice has a much higher expectation than the nth. In other words, they've come all this way, and they're ALMOST at fuck-you money-- they wouldn't want to come back 20 years later and go through the whole process again.

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