Negotiating in those situation (ie early employees in very early stage company) is a fickle thing. Think about it this way, you're functionally similar to an ea

Negotiating in those situation (ie early employees in very early stage company) is a fickle thing. Think about it this way, you're functionally similar to an early angel investor (via the salary cut) that also joins the company afterward. It's easy to see that there is no one-size-fit-all numbers. And everything will depends on the very specific: both in what your contribution should be worth, and what you can reasonably negotiate. You got what you can negotiate for. Besides another poster has mentioned (how much salary you are missing), you would also need to know how much money the founders put in personally (as opposed to seed round), how the company is doing, how much of the options pool is currently reserved for all employees, or even how much money are they planning to raise in the next round. Those numbers don't affect your contribution directly, but it affects what you can negotiate for. I was about to say asking for 2-5% vesting over a 2-3 years. But at 10 people in the company, that sounds like a tough sell to ask for.