anon330

I'm employee #1 at a Canadian startup, and they get by paying me about 3300 per month, before tax. Based on my asking-around, this doesn't seem to be out of the ordinary for the area.

This article is very timely. I've been employee #1 at a small company for about ten months, and I'm not only making just 50-60% of my pay potential, the recently proposed employee options plan grants me just 0.8% vesting over the next four years.

"This isn't about who is more valuable, this about who took the risk."

Risk? I joined less than a year after incorporation. I feel like I'm shouldering substantial risk by taking 50% of my overall compensation as options in a venture which I have no direct control over—I'm not on the board, I'm not a director. The options are worthless until 4-5 years down the road, and even then, I have no control or say into when we sell, to whom, and for how much.

Myself and the other employee are probably going to leave, because we feel that more like 2-3% minimum is appropriate for our position, and we doubt that the founders will see it that way.

Right. I understand that these things are done to retain employees, so it's really not even remotely worth working at this company unless I'm committed to doing so for the 4 years until an exit. I guess the real thing to figure out at this point is whether I want to walk now, or stick around--- and that's basically just a function of whether the options offered are sufficient.

Hmm. So, just to clarify,

"After the 1 year cliff, if you decide to leave you can exercise any options that you've vested up to that point"

If the options are not cash-convertable, is that because they haven't vested, or because they've vested and aren't preferred stock?

Interesting. I've been told that these options will not be convertible to cash except in the case of a buyout or IPO, etc.

Should I be ensuring that these options will vest over time, rather than all at once in case of a liquidity event, etc?