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What is the startup's burn rate, and how much capital is left, or more generally 'how much more funding runway is left?'

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Depending on how open they are start asking questions about their cap table too, especially if they're offering you equity as a large part of compensation. Getting 1-2% in options is wonderful unless they have a down round or two on the books and those investors are going to wipe everyone out with their ridiculous liquidation preferences regardless of how much the liquidity event is for.

Yeah I had a startup offer me 50K shares or something like that and I started poking at what their full diluted share count is and they hemmed and hawwed. Pass.

Good question but I'm afraid that you will not always get an honest answer.

Sometimes it's not about getting an honest answer but showcasing that you are aware of the fundamentals of business and introducing this fact to the CEO directly.

Depending on your level of interest and intuition, you can gauge the answer provided and measure its truthfulness going forward.

It's also a good way to get an idea of how 'fluffy' the CEO is too in their response. This can be a red flag for not wanting to take the job too.

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