Dick Costolo, founder of FeedBurner and later Twitter COO, answers startup questions on business models, stock options, venture terms and office layout.
HN commenters cite it as a great source on open-plan offices, launching quickly, and liquidation preferences, and link it when discussing startup practice.
'Liquidation preference' is a term that applies to what I think of as 3 or 4 related-but-separate concepts. In the simplest situation, with no vested options or other complications, yes, the investor would get all $100 million, assuming nobody else has a liquidation preference.
Vested options and other term sheet items like 'participating preferred' make things more complicated, so you really have to read the entire term sheet to figure out who gets what under what circumstances.
Good resources:
http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/2007/04/venture_terms_liquidation_pref.html
http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2005/01/term-sheet-liquidation-preference.html
Dick Costolo (Twitter COO, Feedburner founder) wrote a great article about the organizational impact of the office lay-out back in 2007 - http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/2007/09/no_offices.html
- he's for Open Plan offices. He says they increase interdepartmental communication, which is true in my experience.
Interesting to compare this to Dick Costolo's Launch Late to Launch Often:
http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/2007/03/launch_late_to_launch_often.html
I love the art of speed slides. They definitely made me want to be more decisive.
Dick Costolo
http://www.burningdoor.com/askthewizard/
Marc Andreesen has been amazing lately.