Percentage doesn't matter to this calculation, though. You'll factor it into your estimation of whether it can net you $1/share, but he obviously can't.
This is his hypothetical example; he obviously can. (i.e. he can say that the company is worth $1 million now so it needs to be worth $x million to make up for the lost pay.) Doing so would do a better job of communicating his message to the reader.
This whole thing isn't that important but why would it be against your confidentiality agreement to write a hypothetical example in one way versus another? I am assuming all of the numbers are fake in the first place.
My original point (again, not very important) is that I think it is more effective communication to say that a company is worth $1 million now and needs to grow to be $10 million for you to make back your lost salary via stocks, rather than talking about number of shares and strike prices (which you can't easily compare against other companies), since those values can easily be manipulated.