Here's something I've been thinking about. Imagine Google or FB acquires of a small startup. The startup's product is either unwanted or incorporated into their parent company within a year. That means that for the next couple years of the payout period, a founder could be making $1M/year. Are they that much more valuable than the rest of the company's devs (who make a lot less)? (That's definitely possible.) Or, are the rest of the devs paid a lot less than what the value they provide? If the latter, why don't Google and FB raise salaries more? Could acquisitions be a kind of backdoor to avoid having to raise everyone's salaries?