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1996: John Tu and David Sun, the founders of Kingston Technology, share the wealth. They take $100 million from the sale of their privately held enterprise and give it to employees — a spontaneous gesture to those who had helped make the memory-module company a market leader.

Kingston’s 550 workers each received, on average, $130,000 — about $180,000 today. It didn’t make anyone rich, and may not have dramatically changed a lot of lives. But this substantial middle-class bonus affirmed the Silicon Valley custom of rewarding sweat equity with cold cash when the going got good, and treating eve...