Even The Receptionists Are Millionaires

In 1993, Heather Beach walked into a crummy brick building in East Palo Alto to start a new, $28,000-a-year job. She was going to be the receptionist for startup Siebel Systems Inc. At the six-person company, this meant everything from answering phones to ordering office supplies. The multiple assignments--and a $7,000 pay cut from a previous job--did not seem to bother Beach, then 25 years old. After all, she was pursuing her goal: to work at an exciting new company where she had a chance of becoming a millionaire by age 30.

WISE RISK. Four years later, Beach has surpassed her wildest expectations. How did she do it? Like many of her colleagues, she elected to take a chunk of her paycheck in equity--on top of stock options she was already granted. So when Siebel, which makes sales-information software, went public in June, 1996, at $17 a share and more than quadrupled in value by December, Beach's fortunes soared, too. For every dollar she took in stock instead of cash, she earned at least $40, depending on the stock price.