Considering a series A startup: Arta Finance https://artafinance.com/ Offer: 225k cash (180 base/ 45 bonus) + 2 bps equity (ISO) Current TC: 280k post crash (should recover to mid 300s w/ refresh), IC5 Pros: * The product is very cool (active AI wealth management across equities, options, real estate, private equity, corporate debt) * The team seems strong & I genuinely enjoyed my conversations with them during interviews * Quant finance exposure- may want to stop at a prop firm or hedge fund at some point in career (have previously held offers at Two Sigma, Old Mission, and Aquatic- maybe made mistakes turning them down but felt like I wanted to reach E5 at meta before considering other opportunities) * Could learn more by building from scratch Cons: * Public markets are low right now and it seems like a good time to load of on refreshers (or equivalent liquid income) to double down while markets keep dipping, private market valuations haven’t necessarily hit the same reality * Additionally the equity seems low and can’t get them to budge. Would need them to exit nearly an order of magnitude higher than incumbents (wealthfront, bettermint, personal capital) to make the offer worthwhile financially. Missing crazy upside since grant is small (even if payout is unlikely in any case) * To be fair, their team is much better positioned than any typical series A * High opportunity cost- could hit E6 in a couple years at Meta or interview more in the new year to find a company that’ll give me what I want in terms of pay and work (may need to wait out the market improving, but I can bare being a meta for longer) I have my mind mostly made up, but want to see blinds opinion
Pardon my ignorance, but I fail to see how wealth management is quant finance exposure.
Maybe it’s usually not to this extent, but these portfolios are more actively managed. You can read about the AMP (ai managed portfolio) product here- https://artafinance.com/amps They have some bright people who’ve worked in quant firms working on this
That offer seems reasonable for a company at that stage IMO.
Does the equity seem low to you?
It's not great, but it might be about the average. I did a job hunt last year at Series A-C and was getting 3-6bps for a senior SWE title from the offers I received. I ended up doing seed stage for 60bps, but there's only 6 employees.
The equity offer seems like trash. If they think it’s sufficient, then ask them to model how you’d do in various exit scenarios? It’s an interesting idea but everyone else in finance is working on integrating AI so I don’t think their value prop seems particularly unique.
I mean they showed me exit scenarios that imply $10B+ valuations. While that’s certainly possible, to take the startup leap at series A, I’d want the payoff to be more substantial in successful but less exceptional scenarios
What’s their series A valuation? Is $10B 20x or 10x or 2x?
Try to see if you can bump base to be over 250k is there a cash bonus every year?
Equity is low but let's say its worth 300k at todays valuation that is 75k over 4 years. So they are keeping you flat vs meta. The questions are 1. Are there refreshers and 2. What does upward mobility look like? Because at 225k you are not super sr finance hire. So is there upward mobility that look attractive?
that’s a fair way to evaluate a pre IPO (series E+) equity but completely wrong for series A
So what would be a good offer for OP be then? Clearly 100 bps is out of the question. So is 10 bps the target?
Also obviously ask for more cash if u can. But big difference between 180k base and 250k base (probably two grades higher)
run from arta. there was a post 2 days ago how they project current valuation based on magic numbers, so as to rip you off on equity. you don’t want to work for a company like that. nothing else matters i didn’t even read your post past “arta”
i went back and read your post now. disagree on the negative of E6 opportunity cost. it is easy to come back as E6 with your arta (or any other) experience. or go to next job as L6 all your other pro/con seem reasonable
Yea that was me. The dollar amounts they tell me are based on that projection but I think overall ownership is the more relevant number (took some time to figure it out)
YOE? Remote?
2bps? Really?
Yea, if it helps they are pretty big at ~80 employees
Is that 2 bps over 4 years?