Agreed that liquidation preference would be helpful, too, but if at the time you're signing on you think the liquidation preference will come into play you shouldn't join them.
Instead of responding “not interested”. I’m just gonna start saying “show me the cap table”. Love this idea
That means you could have executed those options 5 years ago (to prevent a windfall tax), and just get you money back at acquisition time. Zero interest five year loan. Thanks!
This is something that I have been thinking about lately and I am just not well versed enough to know what inputs I need to build this.
I would like to be able to have a some sort of data driven risk assessment.
I would love some input here and would like model this and track when it's time to say goodbye.
Obviously there are other stories that see employees become fantastically wealthy, but that’s a rare exception not the norm. Equity comp at a publicly traded company (via RSUs) is very different than equity comp in a privately held venture. With RSUs you’re still at the mercy of the market but you know how much they’re worth literally second by second.
At a startup as an employee you should generally assume those shares are worth nothing and be OK making what you’ll be making then. Anything above that is a nice windfall bonus.