Talking About Money
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Talking About Money
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Re: Talking About Money
#2As a recent graduate about to go into his first ever salary negotiation, I'm really grateful for the perspective this provides. My dad was a taxi driver (now drives for Uber) and my mother a stay-at-home mom. I was raised with the notion of earning enough to support myself. Anything beyond that is something I'm expected to figure out myself. Posts such as these are very helpful.
A question though:
1. If I've had conversations in quarterly reviews that involved numbers but nothing was ever formalized, are those numbers open to renegotiation in a formal conversation?
2. How do I ask for equity and how much should I ask for as the first hire (technical employee of a non-technical founder)?
Edit: I'm aware the user who posted this is not the author, but I'm hoping patio11 or someone else comfortable offering negotiation advice will stop by the comments section.
Re: Talking About Money
#3If consulting is making $30k/week/job then why keep running the personal businesses? Why not take the consulting and branch it out, and drop everything else as a distraction?
Re: Talking About Money
#4As a recent graduate about to go into his first ever salary negotiation, I'm really grateful for the perspective this provides. My dad was a taxi driver (now drives for Uber) and my mother a stay-at-home mom. I was raised with the notion of earning enough to support myself. Anything beyond that is something I'm expected to figure out myself. Posts such as these are very helpful. A question though: 1. If I've had conv…
For 2, if a reasonable salary is $X, and the company offers you $X-$Y, you're essentially investing $Y per year into the company (at worse terms than actual investors). How much equity do/did investors want for $Y?
Re: Talking About Money
#5If consulting is making $30k/week/job then why keep running the personal businesses? Why not take the consulting and branch it out, and drop everything else as a distraction?
(a) Money isn't everything.
(b) Over a long time horizon, selling a product is more profitable.
EDIT: It's non-trivial to go from consulting to product development as part of the same business. It's often easier to use the money from consulting to start afresh.
Re: Talking About Money
#6I am in support too. The problem is that most companies take implicit advantage of data obfuscation. Some people would ask to be paid more if they only knew.
It is great for employees, but not all companies are ready to do that, and I would guess most would not surive the moment of truth.
Re: Talking About Money
#7If consulting is making $30k/week/job then why keep running the personal businesses? Why not take the consulting and branch it out, and drop everything else as a distraction?
Maybe his passion is to build something. I think we all get stuck initially chasing the dough but eventually realize it's not what we want.
Re: Talking About Money
#8If consulting is making $30k/week/job then why keep running the personal businesses? Why not take the consulting and branch it out, and drop everything else as a distraction?
(a) Money isn't everything. (b) Over a long time horizon, selling a product is more profitable. EDIT: It's non-trivial to go from consulting to product development as part of the same business. It's often easier to use the money from consulting to start afresh.
That's what I meant by branching out. Productize the consulting, so he doesn't need to be there.
Re: Talking About Money
#9>> Most important takeaway about salary negotiation, by the way: disclosing a previous salary is almost always against your interests because it pegs your new salary to that plus 5% rather than your value to the new firm minus a discount, which is a brutal mistake
I had a phone screen with an HR drone once (Cerner Inc. to be exact \waves) part way thru she asked me my current salary. I declined to provide that information. She replied "we can't continue without that information". I replied, I'm sorry, but I won't discuss salary at this point. She said, "good bye" and that was all. I had a job so was not desperate at the time. I was still shocked at how abrupt it was.
Re: Talking About Money
#10I found this spreadsheet[1] to be pretty interesting. Obviously it's anonymous so take the data with a grain of salt.
1- https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F9e8DrWv5_rx3il0r2Sg...