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>You can sit there and tell me your company is worth $1B, but your equity is worth $0 until you can actually pay out on the stock. Right, just like you're wort

>You can sit there and tell me your company is worth $1B, but your equity is worth $0 until you can actually pay out on the stock. Right, just like you're worth $0 the minute you don't have a job, and not, say, some value that is tied to how much you will be earning momentarily. Since you are worth $0, it only stands to reason that unless you can sign your next software engineering job within 2 hours, it is better to immediately accept any job in the city where you can start the same day, for example maybe a McDonald's will hire you for $6/hr. Since you are worth $0, of course you should accept $6, since it's infinite times what you're worth. It's like someone making $60K being offered a $10M job. Jump on it! /s Meanwhile, here in the real world worth isn't "$0 until you can actually pay out". If you can't judge a team and startup, then by all means, this job might not be for you. But the idea that equity is worth $0 until it's paid out, is akin to saying that the next version of some product is 0% finished until you can buy it in stores, at which point it's 100% finished. That might be useful to an outsider, but it's rather silly to someone who knows the situation more closely and is trying to establish whether it's worth something or whether they can meaningfully contribute. Why did John Carmack join Oculus Rift, even though it's "0% finished" in the sense that you still can't buy a retail version in stores? Because he takes the time to come to a much more reasonable valuation of company status and where it's going. Your comment is no better than saying your exact worth is just your next paycheck, or that products are 0% complete until they're shipped, or that companies are worth $0 until an exit. Pure silliness.

Jemaclus 13y ago
It IS worth $0 of real money. Future money / as risk? Sure, it's worth whatever the founder says. But in the end, equity doesn't pay the bills until I can cash out, so if you offer me 30K less than what I tell you my current salary is, I'm very, very, very unlikely to take it, because at the end of the day, I still have to pay my rent. My landlord won't except "Well, in a year, I get 25% of my stock options, and I can pay you then" as a rent check. Your equity is worth $0 cash right now. It's not a replacement for salary, it's an incentive to do well. If we do well and if we successfully exit or get to the point where this sheet of monopoly money is exchanged for $X, then it can be a replacement for salary. Until that time, it's a risk and not a salary. When it comes to salary, I need enough to be assured that I can pay my bills on time each month. Once you meet that minimum threshold, then we can start talking about equity. What you cannot do is say "Well, instead of 30K salary, we'll give you 0.5% of what we imagine our company is worth," which is only slightly better than saying "Instead of 30K salary, we'll give you monopoly money." Furthermore, in some cases (including my own), people are already at jobs where stock has vested or the company has been acquired or IPO'd or is otherwise successful from an equity standpoint, and in those cases, your equity is worth even less, because I'd have to give up X percentage of my current salary AND my currently vesting stock (that may be worth real money) to work for your company where you may or may not get to the point where you're successful enough to pay out on stock. The above is part of the reason why I said as a senior developer, you have to be either a founder (or C-level employee) or really, really, really, really, really believe in the product. Both are true in John Carmack's case, by the way. He fits my exceptions, so you kinda picked a poor example, there. :) I get your point, though. I just happen to disagree with you.
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Jemaclus 13y ago

It IS worth $0 of real money. Future money / as risk? Sure, it's worth whatever the founder says. But in the end, equity doesn't pay the bills until I can cash out, so if you offer me 30K less than what I tell you my current salary is, I'm very, very, very unlikely to take it, because at the end of the day, I still have to pay my rent. My landlord won't except "Well, in a year, I get 25% of my stock options, and I can pay you then" as a rent check. Your equity is worth $0 cash right now. It's not a replacement for salary, it's an incentive to do well. If we do well and if we successfully exit or get to the point where this sheet of monopoly money is exchanged for $X, then it can be a replacement for salary. Until that time, it's a risk and not a salary. When it comes to salary, I need enough to be assured that I can pay my bills on time each month. Once you meet that minimum threshold, then we can start talking about equity. What you cannot do is say "Well, instead of 30K salary, we'll give you 0.5% of what we imagine our company is worth," which is only slightly better than saying "Instead of 30K salary, we'll give you monopoly money." Furthermore, in some cases (including my own), people are already at jobs where stock has vested or the company has been acquired or IPO'd or is otherwise successful from an equity standpoint, and in those cases, your equity is worth even less, because I'd have to give up X percentage of my current salary AND my currently vesting stock (that may be worth real money) to work for your company where you may or may not get to the point where you're successful enough to pay out on stock. The above is part of the reason why I said as a senior developer, you have to be either a founder (or C-level employee) or really, really, really, really, really believe in the product. Both are true in John Carmack's case, by the way. He fits my exceptions, so you kinda picked a poor example, there. :) I get your point, though. I just happen to disagree with you.

deleted 13y ago
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