Good point for sure. It was also relatively common for founders to take a bit off the table at Series B (or even Series A's) along the $100M path too.

Both of which skew again towards preferring those outcomes to the bootstrapping one.

#3 is definitely better in terms of your longer-term ability to make money as well. The personal brand from founding a $1B startup is very monetizable (if you must / want to) after acquisition/IPO, or at the very least to raise seed money for your next venture.

Whether or not this calculus factors into founders' decisions to start a company I can't say. I doubt the mercenary motivation is as common as you suggest, just among the founders I know at least. I think the lure is more to get to build something yourself and 'not have a day job' / sense of adventure, and the potential for money is just kind of a nice cherry-on-top.