I suspect your salary over the years netted you a heck of a lot more than your stock options. I did 3 years of contracting in London 15 years ago (after barely out of school), invested the money, and ended up with about $150k due to a favourable FX rate at the time.
These days it seems that every man and his dog is earning $150k+ if they're a half-decent developer in silicon valley, so I guess the stock options don't really matter. (I earn a lot less than that myself now, because I run my own mildly-profitable business).
It makes you wonder whether stock options are really just like throwing a dog a bone. The only people who really make any money are the investors and founders. At post-IPO places like facebook and google the stock bonus is really just an add-on to your salary. When I look up 'senior software engineer' salaries at google, you typically earn around $250k including stock bonus, so if you're looking for money I guess that's where you should be :)
Except that it's not a choice of 'salary' or 'stock options' it is 'salary' or 'salary + stock options'. I can say pretty confidently that I've earned more with salary + options than I would have as a consultant with just salary.
To date I have made at least as much money with Sun options as I made in salary (I worked there 10 years). At some level, some of my current savings can be traced back to those options so they are in principle (pun intended :-) still earning me money.
Ah ok, I thought the $16k was the entire amount, but I see you said 'left over' :)
Still, for every engineer who lucks out when their startup turns into the next Apple, Sun, Facebook or Google, there are a lot more whose stock options end up either worthless or close to it. Looking at upvotes on the parent article, it seems like $0 outnumbers any other option by almost a factor of 4.
If you've had more than one job your ability to select multiple options goes up :-). There is another post here which mentions they can have negative value (which is to say you exercised them but they were never worth anything) and that is important to.
If you follow the strategy that you only exercise and sell when they are worth money and you can sell, then options are always 'additive' to your salary. If you take options in lieu of salary then you're taking a bigger risk than someone who has both. The philosophy a number of people I know use with startups is enough salary to get by and save a bit, and options as an upside kicker.
These days it seems that every man and his dog is earning $150k+ if they're a half-decent developer in silicon valley, so I guess the stock options don't really matter. (I earn a lot less than that myself now, because I run my own mildly-profitable business).
It makes you wonder whether stock options are really just like throwing a dog a bone. The only people who really make any money are the investors and founders. At post-IPO places like facebook and google the stock bonus is really just an add-on to your salary. When I look up 'senior software engineer' salaries at google, you typically earn around $250k including stock bonus, so if you're looking for money I guess that's where you should be :)