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I have an offer that vests over 6 years with a 1.5 year cliff. Is that normal? I'm used to 4 years 1 year cliff, but the CEO said that 1.5/6 are common for companies that "want employees who care about the long term"
I have an offer that vests over 6 years with a 1.5 year cliff. Is that normal? I'm used to 4 years 1 year cliff, but the CEO said that 1.5/6 are common for companies that "want employees who care about the long term"
If there's a hostile reaction to [3], you just learned something valuable. If there's a neutral reaction, you can say that you're evaluating the CEO's ability to negotiate and persuade, which is true.
Interviews and offer negotiations go both ways.
Don't early exercise. Here's why. Yes, there are potential tax advantages; you avoid having to deal with AMT, which is significant. But the tradeoff is that you've thrown away the essential advantage that an option gives you: the ability to travel back in time and purchase stock with perfect knowledge of what it will do in the future. Why on earth would you give that up? An option lets you wait years with zero risk a…
It really depends on the health of the company, risk tolerance, how long you plan to stay, and your strike price.
Paying a few thousand to exercise early to avoid hundreds of thousands in taxes later was worth it for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think the rewards of the corpo ladder make a lot of sense. An L9 at Google, someone with 15+ YOE and rocking the perf game for over a decade makes less than what any series B to Series E SWE makes.
Uh...what? In base maybe, but after bonus and equity you're looking at $1M+ per year even at an L8 - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... The average SWE working at a series B to series E startup is nowhere close to that. Even if the company exits successfully, it's after a few more years, further dilutions, and you might, MIGHT walk away with a million or two...which you have to amortize o…
How many L8's does Google have? 100? The chances to get there are probably resemble or are even worse than startups from Series B to Exit.
I have an offer that vests over 6 years with a 1.5 year cliff. Is that normal? I'm used to 4 years 1 year cliff, but the CEO said that 1.5/6 are common for companies that "want employees who care about the long term"
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh...what? In base maybe, but after bonus and equity you're looking at $1M+ per year even at an L8 - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... The average SWE working at a series B to series E startup is nowhere close to that. Even if the company exits successfully, it's after a few more years, further dilutions, and you might, MIGHT walk away with a million or two...which you have to amortize o…
An engineer that joins a Series B startup at 500M with 100k/yr equity, and that company gets to 5B valuation, very roughly gets 1M equity yearly. Also potentially tax advantaged. How many L8's does Google have? 100? The chances to get there are probably resemble or are even worse than startups from Series B to Exit.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
An engineer that joins a Series B startup at 500M with 100k/yr equity, and that company gets to 5B valuation, very roughly gets 1M equity yearly. Also potentially tax advantaged. How many L8's does Google have? 100? The chances to get there are probably resemble or are even worse than startups from Series B to Exit.
You're off by a factor of probably 5-10 (and maybe more) in the number of L8s. It's a 150K employee company, with a dozen or so "S"VPs, and then VPs, and then below that are the directors. And its worth remembering that you're implicitly including stock growth in the startup valuation, but not in the big-co valuation. GOOG is up ~10x in the last 10 years and ~4x in the last 5. The 200K in stock the Google person was…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dont think the rewards of the corpo ladder make a lot of sense. An L9 at Google, someone with 15+ YOE and rocking the perf game for over a decade makes less than what any series B to Series E SWE makes.
Uh...what? In base maybe, but after bonus and equity you're looking at $1M+ per year even at an L8 - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... The average SWE working at a series B to series E startup is nowhere close to that. Even if the company exits successfully, it's after a few more years, further dilutions, and you might, MIGHT walk away with a million or two...which you have to amortize o…
No idea what engineers were making, but probably much more than 2x a support agent.
Don't early exercise. Here's why. Yes, there are potential tax advantages; you avoid having to deal with AMT, which is significant. But the tradeoff is that you've thrown away the essential advantage that an option gives you: the ability to travel back in time and purchase stock with perfect knowledge of what it will do in the future. Why on earth would you give that up? An option lets you wait years with zero risk a…
Don't rush into it obviously, take a few weeks/months inside to get a feel for financials, the business/team etc, but early exercise if you can afford it.
Early exercising may risk tens to low hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the upside is hundreds of thousands to millions through long term cap gains and/or QSBS tax savings.
It also protects you from losing your options if you leave the company, two years into your tenure you might want to leave, but the strike to fair market value spread might have grown so much that you can't afford it in your post termination exercise window.
As always, super dependent upon your particular deal, your financial position going into it etc, do your own math and risk tolerance, but I wish someone had shown me the numbers before I joined my first startup.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh...what? In base maybe, but after bonus and equity you're looking at $1M+ per year even at an L8 - https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi... The average SWE working at a series B to series E startup is nowhere close to that. Even if the company exits successfully, it's after a few more years, further dilutions, and you might, MIGHT walk away with a million or two...which you have to amortize o…
I'm aware of support agents at startups that are/were pulling down $300-400k/year in total comp in pre-IPO numbers. Presuming a happy path towards IPO, that total comp could end up being more like $600-800k, none of these people are Google L8 caliber but they will make money in that same ballpark. No idea what engineers were making, but probably much more than 2x a support agent.
That's a big presumption. There were 407 IPOs in the US in 2020. That's not in tech, but in all industries. If you're pinning your hopes of 50% of your comp coming from an IPO event then you must be very happy with risk.