Help me evaluate this offer for Senior Director at a Series B. Strong leadership team with previous startup experience. Company is on track for $250M in revenue by 2026. Working on generative AI. $600k salary 300,000 options $1/strike $5/preferred $400M valuation 4 year vest If the company is successful I'd like to make atleast $10M on exit. How many more options to ask for?
What space are they in
Generative AI
Why not? I’d say go for it
should be a great question to ask the AI
Base?
$600k
Nice. What's your level at Microsoft?
Sounds too good to be true. They are paying far too much based on their valuation and stage of development. Assuming your customer will acquire you is a bad bet. Every VC I spoke with thinks GenAI is going to change everything, but most companies don't really have anything special to offer.
Good feedback.
Base is stellar for this role. Options is worth 0.375% of the company. You can negotiate a bit more on that. How many employees are there?
Around 100 employees. The base is not normal. The role is closer to chief software architect. I didn't want to get hung up on titles before hearing numbers.
So you would be managing people as well?
At the current standing you seem to basically be hoping for shares to reach a 34 dollar value (not including taxes) to make 10mil. The 5 dollar valuation price you should check if it’s during the bull run (meaning overvalued) and when they raised vs their burn rate. If you are very high level you can ask for a 409A potentially. It’s very unlikely for you to make 10mil from a series B unless IPO / massive acquisition unless you asked for a seemingly unreasonable amount of options.
Series B closed this summer. Thank you this gives me something to think about.
What’s your YOE
27
Can you get more options instead of cash? Often times you can trade one for the other if you are feeling bullish on the equity. 10M should certainly be doable pre-tax if the company performs. Bummer you missed out on qsbs. From my perspective it's obvious you are critical talent for them. You probably have a large amount of leverage since it's really hard to find such people. Is there anything else you might like? Access to secondary markets? Different vesting schedule? Maybe talking to an employment lawyer or a head hunter might be smart... Just some food for thought. Best of luck 🤞
Great offer!
1m