Re:The Open Guide to Equity Compensation
by paxys on Sunday April 13, 2025 @08:52PM
(#43677070)
Exactly. If I'm joining a 30 person startup it's not because of the size of the paycheck. Any larger company will obvioulsy be able to easily beat the offer. I want a significant amount of equity. I want to see the cap table. I want to see details about funding rounds, finances, available runway. I want to see MRR/ARR, recently closed deals. If founders dance around these questions and say "equity is not imporant, see how much we are paying you" then I'm walking out the door.
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Reading through the thread, the point is the startups arn't providing transparent accounts of what the equity is and how it can be diluted and reduced over the life time and sale of the company. That's all the debate.
Many people have seen those options become worthless because of legalistic maneuvers and violate what's said in the initial options.
So this tangent isn't really clarifying anything. Some people would simply want larger salaries and options be valued as 0$ for evaluating compensation because how easy Capitalists have made it to screw over classes of options/share holders.
Nothing wrong with wanting a guaranteed salary and job stability, but people in this situation should simply not be working at a VC funded tech startup. “Boring” software companies exist. Banks, government, aerospace, manufacturing, consulting Countless mid-large software companies of all conceivable types. Practically all of them will be able to beat a tiny startup on salary. Go work at them instead.
The question is more so to startups looking for proper staff. I'm not really certain you're getting the best quality staff if your best offer is to pimp up options. Seems like only morons would take that, and well, isn't that a problem itself?
If you think about it the vast majority of startup options are worth $0 so you have to treat them as worthless or you’re not being rational.
The idea that they’re a lottery ticket is the only way they keep hiring and I’ve heard plenty of engineers refer to actual lottery tickets as idiot tax