Yeah. I've not had an exit that high, but I've had an exit where my 25% initially was whittled down to 10k, and frankly I was surprised I got anything at all - in the end I was diluted to hell and back, but none of the later rounds had any liquidation preference that got triggered. It's easy to see a large exit number and assume it means it's a success, but in the case in question the (significantly more modest than $559M but still significant-sounding) exit was even below the total amount raised, and I'd written it off as a failure and left when we needed to staff down and I didn't feel I was needed any more about 5 years before the company was finally sold.

It sucks to see "your" (at this point it did not at any point feel like it was "mine") company selling for huge amounts and get nothing or near nothing, but it's worth people understanding that a large-sounding exit does not automatically mean it represents a success.

E.g. in this case the last round in 2015 apparently valued them at over a billion. Going from a $1bn valuation to a $465m exit is not great...

It's easy for people to think these terms were onerous, but if they could get $275m (the size of the last round) at those terms they likely could've still have found significant investment at less onerous terms if they wanted less risk. They chose to take those investments.

Taking VC cash is very often a game of deciding whether you want to gamble it all on faster growth or take less risk for less cash, but with the additional caveat that the investors you take on often will cheer for the "gamble it all" option as they have many parallel bets while you as the founder has one.

I've taken VC money several times and been part of early stage VC funded startups several times (including a VC), and I wouldn't rule out doing so again at some point, but it's important to go in understanding that the VC's incentives and yours are different, but if they are too different, then taking VC money might not be right for you, and that's fine.