Author here, thanks for the thoughts!
> could be more helpful if it included more realistic numbers.
Any ideas on where to find these? While there's a lot of info out there on valuations most datasets have the problem of hindsight bias, especially missing data at the pre-A round.
> only 2 startups are compared in the NPV calculation. What about joining a BigCo / FAANG?
My original model was actually a FAANG vs two startup model (I left Apple) but it gets too complex to try to explain it in a post that's aimed at the stock options 101 crowd.
> the math gets slightly better if you assume you leave after some amount of vesting.
100%, although that's tough to model without just adding an arbitrary cutoff.
Thanks, I did not know about this tool!