Equity/Cash tradeoff
The best way to make big decisions is to ask the internet. Numbers fudged a bit to anonymize. How do I make the trade-off between real money and lottery tickets? What would you do? I'd be really excited to work at all of these. Each one is exciting and with great people. Apple Bay Area: TC 375k Google Bay Area: TC 375k Startup in Pittsburgh cash 270k, equity 800k/year Current TC 160 (Bay Area startup)
Are you nudging towards a team/city? Do you have a family? If you're putting the startups without a name, I'm guessing it's not a big startup. Personally if I was very interested in the startup, I'd go for that. I'd honestly think the equity as bonus coz 270k in Pittsburgh is a lot more than 350k in Bay area.
800K/yr equity looks like a troll post to me.
Then treat the equity as $0 when making decisions.
Use the expected value of the equity.
Which startup?
Yoe? Levels at fb, g? Compare the startup equity to 409a valuation. Also you own analysis on success probability/funding. And if 800k is really 800k on a FDB i would go for the startup since it is 3x more comp with a possible up side.
$800k/y? What does the grant look like? 3.2M / 4y?
Yep
Pretty cool, if you believe in the valuation ;)
Equity is fake money unless the company has an imminent exit event. And in some cases depending on the type of stock unit (RSU, etc) it can really fuck you come tax time when they vest, only to be worth nothing. 270k in Pittsburgh is "live like a king" money whereas 375k in bay area is middle class/upper middle class. So really depends on where you wanna live.