Re:Silicon Valley's best kept secret: Founder liquidity
by jjav on Thursday June 13, 2024 @04:04PM
(#40674045)
> I guess you're looking in the wrong places.
It's possible! I live in the silicon valley bubble.
I've worked for 5 startups (and had offers from about ~5 more to know what they would've paid). None have been close to total comp at a public company.
All of them have been very competitive (or even higher!) on base salary.
But there's no recurring RSUs in a startup (since there is no stock to trade), and rarely bonuses. So total comp is about 30-40% of my total comp when working at public companies.
I guess you're looking in the wrong places. Over the past 13 years, I've worked for five startups (both full-time and contract) that paid market rate (two paid a fair bit above, even). In my professional and social circles, this has been pretty common. Certainly some have worked below market rate for some companies, but that seems to be the exception, not the rule.
> But at an established company you are also making money on RSUs, often more than your salary
That's definitely not been my experience. At established companies, the RSUs are usually a nice quarterly bonus, in the wide range of 10-50% of base (annualized). Certainly there are some where the RSUs can end up being several multiples of base (I've worked at one like that), but I don't think it's that common. A lot of people seem to assert that you can easily get that at a FAANG, but that doesn't seem to be true. Some people can, but not the median employee.
Also consider that a lot of the stories of high equity comp come from people talking about the FAANGs. Consider that those companies were founded 20-25+ years ago, and the "rules" have changed quite a bit over time since then.