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Welcome to this entire conversation on why early employee compensation isn't fair.

• icedchai 8y ago
  My point is Employee #1 should’ve asked for more. 1% isn’t enough. Maybe 5 or 10% is.
  • rosser 8y ago
    Yes, let's blame the person that structurally has less power in the dynamic for having that power imbalance used against them. Of course you can try to negotiate for more. Enough people want to work at a startup however that if you ask too much, you'll get passed on, and they'll just hire the next candidate who doesn't act so entitled to a meaningful piece of the founders' pie. It's exactly the same phenomenon that lets the big game studios chew up and spit out engineers: there's always someone else willing to take the job for less, or even just put up with the status quo. That's a massive part of the problem, and telling people to negotiate better doesn't address it — or even acknowledge it.
    • icedchai 8y ago
      Let them take the worse candidate then. The startup is probably going to fail anyway. Jobs are easier to find than good engineers, especially your first few engineers. That requires taking a leap.
    • maconic 8y ago
      Well, but then don't look for generic cookie cutter startups that everyone wants to work at :) Go after the startup where you as employee #1 are uniquely positioned to negotiate for. If you're employee #1 and you just graduated from college and this is your first job, and you have no special abilities beyond every other CS graduate across the United States, then yeah, you really don't have much negotiating power... nor do you at any other large company like Google either.