There are good and bad reasons for this. You really should ask. But there is a common standard for how many shares you should have, so the # shares is normally comparable between different companies. Sometimes you do get this crazy company with 100M shares post round A. That's a bad sign in itself.
Really? What is this "common standard"? I'll agree that there's a range, but the high end is 2-5x the low end, so if you don't know the exact number for different, you can't reasonably compare companies.
VCs always ask and they're constantly evaluating investments. Why do you think that the less-practiced should wing it?
