[cleandreams]

My base salary was fine but the magic was in the stock.

I got a payout on acquisition by a FAANG+ (as first employee). It was only 300K but I put 50K of that into Nvidia. Actually I invested all my payout from my startup stock into tech stocks. And I got a terrific golden handcuffs deal.

After that I could afford to retire and I did.

[another_twist]

Did you also post this recently in Blind ? If it is so you might want to fuzz the numbers a bit.

[cleandreams]

Less than 10 years ago but not recent.