💰 SALARY NEGOTIATION #4 - Negotiating Equity, Not Just Salary

Especially at startups, equity can be worth more than the base salary difference - but most candidates don't know what questions to ask.

✅ Questions to ask before accepting any equity offer:

1. "How many total shares are outstanding, fully diluted?" (Your number of shares means nothing without this - 10,000 shares out of 10 million is very different from 10,000 out of 100 million)

2. "What's the strike price, and what's the most recent 409A valuation?" (This tells you the real cost to exercise, and a rough sense of current value)

3. "What's the vesting schedule?" (Standard is 4 years with a 1-year cliff - meaning you get nothing if you leave before year one)

4. "Is there a post-termination exercise window longer than 90 days?" (Standard 90-day windows force ex-employees to either pay to exercise immediately or lose their vested equity - some companies now offer extended windows, which is a real, valuable perk to ask about)

If a recruiter can't answer these clearly, that's itself useful information about the company's transparency.

Bottom line: never treat "$X in equity" as a clean number to compare across offers without understanding the mechanics behind it.

Has anyone here actually had equity turn into real money? Tell us about it 👀