> ...because there is no way to evaluate an equity grant without knowing the percentage associated with the grant. Even if you don't care much about equity, if

> ...because there is no way to evaluate an equity grant without knowing the percentage associated with the grant. Even if you don't care much about equity, if you care about it at all you should be able to get that information. 1. Calculating a true percentage associated with a grant can be difficult. You can identify the number of shares of stock outstanding across all classes, the number of currently authorized shares, and the size of the option pool. But you don't know how much of the option pool will actually be used, how many options will vest, etc. 2. Unless you're an executive hire or unicorn, most companies will not give you all of the data necessary to meaningfully evaluate the equity grant. You can ask for it, as so many suggest, but asking for something that a) you almost certainly won't receive and b) that you're not trying to focus on (for the reasons I originally gave) is not very strategic. 3. At an early-stage, venture-backed startup (my comments are not intended to address late-stage, liquidity-all-but-certain scenarios), the equity structure of the company is likely to change considerably and perhaps unpredictably, rendering your initial evaluation all but useless. 4. If an early-stage startup is capable of offering you a satisfactory salary (at market or, these days, above market), you are far better off trying to ascertain what the company's runway is. Your biggest risk at a startup is not that you're going to join the next Facebook as an early employee and walk away with next to nothing but rather that the company is going to run out of cash.