Base comp or GTFO > Total comp or GTFO

New
NotNorman

New

NotNorman
Jun 22, 2021 19 Comments

Total comp skews people’s expectations of what they should expect to bring home and budget. Do you think we should show total comp without the base and company market status?

Let’s go though an example with TC $200k

Often times the breakdown is:
140 base
60 stock yearly (options or rsu) — private company
Your take home is ~$7500 /mo
Yearly vesting liquidation opportunity:$0

That’s very different than another breakdown of the same total comp.
200 TC
190 Base
10k stock yearly (RSU public)
Take home ~9400 /mo
Yearly vesting liquidity: $10k +/- market chance
Actual monthly average = ~ 10k
Same “TC” completely different financial situation.
Prove me wrong.


BC: 138k
Stock: 20k yearly — private
TC: 158
#personalfinance #TC #base #salary #software #engineering

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TOP 19 Comments
  • I don't even care about that. I just want listed TC to be the TC when they accepted the offer, no more stock upside BS.

    If you were offered a TC of 350, put that, not the 600 that you are at due to stock value increasing.
    Jun 22, 2021 5
  • Amazon
    Datageek36

    Go to company page Amazon

    Datageek36
    How is TC not “actual compensation”? Is a 100k sign on bonus and/or 100 shares of Amazon stock not real money? Makes zero sense.

    Might understand the argument for pre-ipo but anything else makes no sense.
    Jun 22, 2021 4
    • New
      NotNorman

      New

      NotNorman
      OP
      Trvg I agree with you 100%. My point is exactly that. Many people report TC with those worthless “options” and rsu that will never be worth anything. If they included BC and company status things would be a bit more clear.
      Jun 22, 2021
    • Facebook / Eng
      trvg-397

      Go to company page Facebook Eng

      trvg-397
      I don’t really give two fuxks about TC of people from no name companies. I bet I am not alone.

      Even if people are trying to join startups and going through the painful exercise of determining the value of stock options, these data points are not useful either. For 1, option from company A can’t be compared with option from company B. Secondly option from company A at time t1, could be valued very differently compared to time t2.
      Jun 22, 2021
  • New
    Edh21k

    New

    Edh21k
    Yeah, for private companies TC is a guess at best; but startups are a totally different world and everyone knows that.

    Most people posting their TC work for public companies, where stock is just as good as cash. Definitely need to stick to TC - anything else would be stupid.
    Jun 22, 2021 1
    • New
      NotNorman

      New

      NotNorman
      OP
      Fair point!
      Jun 22, 2021
  • Facebook / Eng
    trvg-397

    Go to company page Facebook Eng

    trvg-397
    Other: TC or GTFO
    Jun 22, 2021 1
    • New
      NotNorman

      New

      NotNorman
      OP
      Mine is there at the bottom now.
      Jun 22, 2021
  • IBM / Product
    cacti 🤠

    Go to company page IBM Product

    cacti 🤠
    What I'd like to see is everyone posting this:

    For public cos: "TC $200k + $150k RSU" at grant time
    For private cos: "TC $200k + $150k paper money" valued at the last round I guess.

    Something like that would be more helpful for negotiating imo. I post my TC like that bc I'm at a startup and it feels ridiculous to post a $400k TC from a startup lol. Like it's clearly a smaller number plus some big dreams versus actual TC.
    Jun 22, 2021 0