I mean, if you explore scenarios in https://www.tldroptions.io/ even your scenario of $1M per employee is super rare. Actual stock option agreements I've seen and heard about recently for Series A early stage startups were small fractions of a percentage point of outstanding shares, and subject to potentially many more rounds of dilution.
The only time in my 20+ career I've gotten anything real out of an employer being acquired was when Google bought my employer (for just under $400m) in 2011. In that case, though, the stock conversion of my options was only part of the generous compensation package from Google. And in that case it certainly wasn't "I'm gonna go retire now" money, either.
The only time in my 20+ career I've gotten anything real out of an employer being acquired was when Google bought my employer (for just under $400m) in 2011. In that case, though, the stock conversion of my options was only part of the generous compensation package from Google. And in that case it certainly wasn't "I'm gonna go retire now" money, either.