On: My experience as the first employee of a Y Combina...

[rdl]

Name one company in the USA which didn't take outside funding and exited for more than 30mm usd?

[usaar333 → rdl]

I'm somewhat sure that would describe National Instruments (IPO'd at a $380M market cap)

[rdl → usaar333]

Wow. I was secretly trying to get you to find an answer to one of Keith Rabois questions on quora. I forgot he qualified it as post 1999. Can you do that too?

National Instruments is an amazing company...I was fortunate to get to use their products on some projects as a teenager.

[usaar333 → rdl]

I'm not 100% positive on NI. I just recall that claim being made when I interned there and can't find any info suggesting otherwise.

They IPO'd in 1995, btw.

[jon_dahl → rdl]

The first few hires often happen before VC funding is raised, right? And 2-3% for the first few employees isn't unusual amongst companies that later raise VC funding and make it big.

[equark → rdl]

Sas. Still private no funding, founder is worth 8 billion.

[roel_v → equark]

Yeah, and how much of those do the employees get? Right.

[nl → roel_v]

SAS has a profit sharing programming. That's often a better deal for employees.

In SAS's case they pay up to $70,000 as a bonus, in Canada anyway: http://www.eluta.ca/top-employer-sas-canada. Averages seem to range from $9000 to $32,000 (http://www.glassdoor.com/Bonuses/SAS-Institute-Bonuses-E3807...)