08/25/97 EVEN THE RECEPTIONISTS ARE MILLIONAIRES

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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.
Now, says a jubilant Beach, who spent a bit of her booty on rollerblades and a new bed, those who thought she was crazy for joining a fledgling operation are thinking again. ''It's all about taking risk,'' explains Beach, who had written her college thesis on the virtues of employee stock ownership. ''I wasn't going to say I wudda, I shudda, or I cudda.''
Neither are the scores of secretaries, receptionists, office managers, and other support personnel who have cashed in on Silicon Valley's seemingly boundless prosperity. Sure, the bulk of high-tech wealth rests in the hands of senior executives, entrepreneurs, bankers, and venture capitalists. But an increasing number of lucky, lower-level employees at such hot companies as Netscape Communications, Yahoo!, and CNET are benefiting, too. This is no small phenomenon, says Cisco Systems CEO John T. Chambers, who says 42% of Cisco's stock options are held by rank-and-file employees with an average gain of more than $100,000.
But unlike many of Silicon Valley's high-profile big spenders, most working stiffs, such as Beach, don't run out to buy planes or lavish vacation homes. Instead, they are putting their good fortunes into retirement accounts or education. Jennie Ahdan, for instance, is a 54-year-old receptionist for Netscape. She's using her windfall for a little travel and to help put her son through law school. Her one indulgence: a new BMW 525i.
36 STOCK SPLITS. Then there are people such as 36-year-old Jennifer A. Overstreet. She was employee No.35 at Oracle Corp. in 1983. She worked for more than 12 years as personal assistant to CEO Lawrence J. Ellison, starting out with an annual salary of $18,000. In that time, Overstreet says Oracle grew from 35 employees to 24,000 and from $5 million in revenues to $5 billion. Her bank account swelled, too, as stock options originally granted 14 years ago for $5 became worth at least $2,000 each, thanks to some 36 stock splits.
Last year, Overstreet quit her job, opting to take some time for herself, get married next January, and fix up an 8,000-square-foot home in swank Pacific Heights. ''For those people like me, in the right place at the right time, we did really well in an unbelievable way,'' says Overstreet, who plans to find a new job after the wedding.
Unbelievable as this sharing of the wealth may be, in Silicon Valley, where millionaires are as typical as a sunny day, it's a fact of life.
By Linda Himelstein in San Mateo

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