Probably deals where the founders made > $1b each.
The data here isn’t my strength, but let’s make a partial list for U.S. start-ups pre-IPO:
- WhatsApp Founders, $5.5b (+-) each (2 founders). It’s likely they made more with FB stock appreciation.
- Qualtrics Founders, $1b+ each (3 founders). Sale to SAP. Pretty good for SaaS.
- GitHub Founders, $1b+ each. Sale to MSFT.
Others made more, e.g. Reid Hoffman at LinkedIn, but they had to go through an IPO first. The IPO itself was an exit and we probably shouldn’t count it for this list.
