I've never worked at a startup that was consistent about giving out it's bonuses. Usually they did some variation of the "making our numbers" policy usually in place at larger corporations. As a startup, you hardly ever make your numbers. So I've come to discount bonuses altogether (along with worthless stock options) when negotiating my salary. Now that I'm at a bigger company, having a consistent bonus every year is quite nice. There are tradeoffs to be made though...