This post might be helpful: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060 Everything is a negotiated outcome, but good

This post might be helpful: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=973060 Everything is a negotiated outcome, but good engineers are worth market salary in the absence of equity. With equity, one rule of thumb I've heard is give 1% for every $10,000 cut the person takes. This implicitly values your company at $1m, but I guess most companies don't hire an employee unless the business is worth at least that. Another rule of thumb I've heard is $50k for 2%-4%. Somewhat supporting this is Aaron Patzer (Mint.com founder) paid his early engineers $30k-$50k for 1% to 5% equity. See http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/08/startups-101-the-complete-mint-presentation/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/08/startups-101-the-complete-m...