AIUI, startups “compensate” you in paper stock that you can’t sell, and even worse, they actually make you pay them for it! This seems like a completely terrible deal.
But really my objection is that the company is “offering” you the opportunity to pay them to “buy” part of your TC.
First 200 people? So 2011 or so?
I've had fairly senior roles so reading all the articles about how people can get screwed reminds me that I'm getting screwed, in a completely different way though and probably a lot more simple a way.
Depending on the position, you may also want a look at the cap table but more often just the summary or even current %age.
Part of the reason people don't do this by default is that it's dynamic. I can promise you 100k shares today and that's what happens 3 mo from now when you start, but hiring anyone else (or you for that matter) will change the %age number.
By the way, especially early on a primary reason you should ask isn't to value the equity but to get a better idea of how the offer values you....
I'm currently on the job search. One of my offers was quite forthright and included the total number of outstanding shares and the fraction I would receive. But this seems very unusual.
The others all treated this information as proprietary/confidential. They either provide an opaque "valuation" of the equity, or give the current strike price ("fair market value" according to 409a) and preferred price (implied valuation after most recent funding round), and strongly imply that the spread here implies that the options are already significantly in-the-money.
Sometimes they just give the number of of options and their strike price.
You’re paying 40%+ in taxes for RSUs as soon as you vest. If you’re able to early exercise stock at a startup you owe minimal taxes when you join a company and then when you sell you’re just paying long term capital gains taxes which is a lot lower than 40%.
but with RSUs it’s just like income, which again isn’t a great tax treatment especially if you live in a state with state income taxes.
One approach is to accomplish the tax withholding by withholding some of the RSU grant at each vesting. This seems pretty reasonable, since you aren't out any cash to pay the taxes on an illiquid asset.