Quite a lot similar posts recently. The more these points are repeated over and over again, the less relevant they are. That same advice you can find in article

Quite a lot similar posts recently. The more these points are repeated over and over again, the less relevant they are. That same advice you can find in articles from 50 years ago. As more people are pretending to be excited about the job no matter what and not motivated by money just to appear more attractive it lowers the performance scores everywhere and it just doesn't work anymore. The most productive negotiations should be straight talk about the numbers and terms. You shouldn't just hope the other party is stupid and will agree to less than fair terms. When somebody brings up a number ask or explain where it comes from and how does it compare to other numbers. Ask if their offer is fair, something that they would take in your shoes, so that if they say yes and later on it turns out that was not the case, you can raise the issue with a good reason. If the other party starts to get forgetful, dodge questions or lie - fine, you can treat them as a hostile party, but it makes no sense to start off with deception and advantage play against your team. Especially in startups. Big companies have moved on from this more or less anyway.