The part about dilution was interesting. I looked at several tech startup IPO filings and it "appeared" to me that most founders ended up with 4 to 7% in equity. Also in nearly all cases, there is one VC who owns more than 20% of the company.
Pretty standard in my opinion. Depending on your negotiability, you're going to get diluted 10-40% in every round. Do that a few times, and you can see where one ends up :)
Kinda pathetic though, isn't it? A group of people devote their lives to a product, working round-the-clock for years, and then reap (relatively) tiny rewards compared to the money man.
What money man are you referring to exactly? Most of the actual money in these situations comes from massive institutional funds where there is no individual man.
