Equity, unlike salary, can be crammed (dilution not correlated to valuation or investment) away to an arbitrary degree at each funding event. Surprising not to see this mentioned.
Every time you see a small company change CEOs you are probably seeing all the employees who have been there since the beginning crammed away into nothingness so the new CEO can get his 6%. The old CEO and execs won't walk away with nothing so it comes out of the share of the rest of the employees.
I can tell when a company I have worked at is going to get a new CEO because I get a notice in the mail telling me that my ownership has been further crammed away into nothingness. This happens months before the actual handoff.
Options at a small company are definitely not in your favor. Options at a pre-IPO company might be a different story, but pre-IPO you can get a real salary and the options just bump your income up a bit.
Interesting things happen after you exercise. From now on I will always exercise one share once I reach the first cliff.
Every time you see a small company change CEOs you are probably seeing all the employees who have been there since the beginning crammed away into nothingness so the new CEO can get his 6%. The old CEO and execs won't walk away with nothing so it comes out of the share of the rest of the employees.
I can tell when a company I have worked at is going to get a new CEO because I get a notice in the mail telling me that my ownership has been further crammed away into nothingness. This happens months before the actual handoff.
Options at a small company are definitely not in your favor. Options at a pre-IPO company might be a different story, but pre-IPO you can get a real salary and the options just bump your income up a bit.
Interesting things happen after you exercise. From now on I will always exercise one share once I reach the first cliff.