$100k isn't much money. If you've taken stock in lieu of $15-$20k/yr salary, $100k is pretty easy to make up (especially considering that many bigger, established companies also pay bonuses and have a better structure for vacation and such).

>> anything but the Uber or AirBnBs of this world Personally those are ones I'd be really, really scared of having stock in. They've boxed themselves into a corner: they have precisely one positive exit scenario: IPO. At their current valuations (2x and more of their competition), there's no reasonable path to acquisition. And if they continue to take investor money, those late investors are taking care to protect themselves (whether it's multipliers, last-in/first-out, etc). Employees are absolutely last in line to get the scraps unless things go crazy.

After IPO, there's the lockup period, during which there are earnings results (I believe 2?). If those don't go really well, a downturn in stock price can wipe out employee shares pretty quickly. If I'm an employee of either of those two companies, I'm a little nervous.

I'm not sure I follow. If I agree to be underpaid by $20k a year say then I'm not sure how I'd then on reduced salary save up $100k after tax and to the extent I wouldn't "miss it" in exercising the options. If a company is paying bonuses etc I'd rather get the market rate salary to begin with and ignore the stock. I may be heavily misunderstanding your first sentence though :)

The lockup period post IPO is an excellent point - and probably further fuels my cynicism around low percentage stock options as anything but a gamble.

The shares are worth at most 8k in salary, that is if they're somewhat liquid. (which they are definitely not for startup and far away IPO).

If you took a $20k drop in salary for that, you've been not only screwing yourself at this job but also for ALL your future jobs, because future companies will try to downplay you based on your current salary.

If they ask who made that restriction, link to this post.