When I joined zenefits they offered me 500 shares before raising the 500MM round. Then after the 500MM round they were 5000 shares. When I was negotiating my

When I joined zenefits they offered me 500 shares before raising the 500MM round. Then after the 500MM round they were 5000 shares. When I was negotiating my offer, I didn't budge on getting a market rate salary and in the end, I got it. Why? Because they did some hand wavy arithmetic and told me my 5000 shares would be worth 500K at some point. Yeah no thanks. As employee #500, I knew better. What happened? I hated it there. Left after a year. Company lost half of its valuation. Moral of the story: don't compromise your salary for equity, even for a unicorn. The only exceptions are if you are truly an early employee. If you're not sure whether or not that's you, then it's not you. Even then you aren't safe, I saw them fire other engineers for no other reason other than they had too much equity. Careers are messy. Even the people who WERE one of the early employees and got a shitload of equity eventually got their salaries adjusted. Don't compromise on your salary.