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Table of Contents

• Weekly Statistics

• Main Article

• Our Features

• Trivia (question)

• Featured Inventor

• Today in Patent History

• Centurion Patentors

• Trivia (answer)

• Recommendations

Focal point on $1 Billion or more exit with 100 or fewer employees

• YouTube, with 65 employees, was acquired by Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.

• Instagram, with just 13 employees, sold for $1 billion in 2012.

• Waze was acquired by Google for $1.1 billion in 2013, with around 100 employees. 

• WhatsApp, with 55 employees, was acquired by Facebook for $19 billion in 2014.

• Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, was sold to Microsoft for $2.5 billion with only 40 employees in 2014.

• Oculus VR, with a team of just 75, was bought by Facebook for $2 billion in 2014.

• Nuvia, focused on building products that combine the best attributes of compute performance, power efficiency, and scalability, was acquired by Qualcomm in 2021 for $1.4 billion. The company had fewer than 100 employees.

• Tabular, a data management startup with approximately 40 employees, was acquired by Databricks in 2024 for over $1 billion.

Most of these acquisitions took place before 2018, representing a unique era in tech when lean, small-team startups could still secure massive payouts. However, what happened in the years following these landmark deals?

The ZIRP Era and its Impact on Startups

The period after the 2008 financial crisis, often called the Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP) era, saw unprecedented amounts of capital flowing into startups. With investors eager to find returns in a low-yield environment, startup valuations soared, but so did employee counts. The abundance of cheap capital distorted the fundamentals of early-stage startups. Growth became the game's name, and that growth often came at the expense of employee equity.

While founders could still negotiate lucrative exits, startup employees began to feel the pinch. As companies raised more extensive funding rounds, employee equity became diluted. In many cases, the reward for being a startup employee, a historically high-risk, high-reward proposition, was less attractive.

The Shift Back to Fundamentals

Today, however, we are seeing a return to leaner, more efficient startup teams. A key driver of this shift is the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential. AI tools now allow small teams to accomplish what previously required much larger groups. In essence, we witnessed a return to the fundamentals that made startups like Instagram and WhatsApp such compelling success stories in the first place: small, agile teams solving big problems capable of delivering outsized returns.

Why This Matters for Startup Employees

This shift has enormous implications for startup employees. In the last five years, it has been notoriously tricky for non-founder startup employees to make significant financial gains through equity. The more funding rounds a startup went through, the more diluted early-stage employees' equity became. But if we are truly seeing a resurgence of small-team, big-exit startups, the risk-reward balance for startup employees is finally getting better.

In this new era, top talent at small, focused startups could once again see their equity become a golden ticket. For the most fortunate and skilled employees, working at a lean startup on the verge of a massive acquisition might lead to life-changing exits, which have been mainly out of reach in recent years.

A New Era for Startup Success

As we look to the future, combining lean startup teams and AI-driven productivity could begin a new wave of innovation. Investors may favor startups with smaller teams, knowing that smaller groups amplified by technology can achieve more with less. In turn, employees at these companies might benefit from meaningful equity stakes, bringing back the possibility of genuinely transformational wealth.

This shift isn’t just about founders and investors anymore; it's about the employees, too. If small-team, big-value exits make a comeback, we could be entering a new era in which startup employees finally see the rewards they deserve.

Patent Attorney Profile (an illustrative example)

Please scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to find out.

His passion for open-source technology led to the creation of Vipul’s Razor, a revolutionary anti-spam system that catalyzed the founding of Cloudmark, a leading anti-spam company. In 2003, his innovative achievements earned him recognition as one of MIT Technology Review’s top 100 young innovators under 35.

As co-founder of Topsy Labs, Prakash advanced social media analytics, culminating in the company’s acquisition by Apple in 2013 for over $200 million. He contributed to search and AI advancements at Apple as Director of Engineering.

In 2022, Prakash launched Together AI to democratize access to AI through open-source technology. In under 10 months, the company achieved Centaur status, reaching a $100 million valuation. The company is valued at $1.2 billion and has raised $106 million in Series A funding led by Salesforce Ventures. Kleiner Perkins and Lux Capital, among others, also participated in the round.

Prakash's career epitomizes innovation and ethical computing, cementing his legacy in AI and technology.

Congratulations to last week's Centurion Patentors!
We are excited to welcome the following inventors into these prestigious patent clubs:

for more info about their research & patents click here

The answer is:

Martin Goetz. Nearly two-thirds of utility patents are now linked to software.

Famous Inventors Born in December!

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