When I look at the dollar amount of some of the largest-ever Founders Awards and then see how many people they're split between, I can't imagine that the payout is anywhere close to even an employee's payout for an acquisition. I dunno how the Founders Awards are divided up, but I'd imagine that it's a skew distribution, with most of it going to the initiators and key early team members of the project. Some of these teams have hundreds of employees; I really doubt that someone who joined six months before the Founders Award makes off with any more than a "Hey, that's a nifty bonus" amount.