I got an initial offer from Waymo at Staff level. They said they determine their numbers by looking at your competing offers. However, apparently they aren’t even willing to match my other offer from a public company??? I’m legit confused, I was expecting them to give a solid offer. They are trying to claim I should judge them by their preferred price instead of their common share price (409a), but of course I would still only get common shares. Don’t private companies usually give higher offers to account for their lack of liquidity and higher risk (especially a company like Waymo where there doesn’t appear to be any quick path to a liquidity event)? I was hoping for an offer of ~100k TC greater than my public offer to offset the risk and consider them seriously, but it sounds like they aren’t willing to even match my other offer. They claim based on their magic “multiplier” that the equity grant would be way too large compared to the other company. How the hell do they manage to hire people with this nonsense comp philosophy?
Depends on the which the Public company is to decide which is better Also if they are anything like google when it comes to hiring they will just ignore competing offers unless it’s from a list that they have (similar companies / competitors) One true way to negotiate is willing to walk away (caution I am terrible at negotiating my pay )
Can you always walk back ?
I’m really bullish on the public company. They have a far higher chance of doubling than Waymo has of hitting their multiplier. I didn’t mention the company to them, but its well known. It didn’t sound like the hangup was with the name of the company, but rather that they want to value their equity more than double what its current fair market value is. Unless something falls through with the public company I’m basically all but guranteed to walk away at this point. It’s a shame because the team and work sounded really interesting to me at Waymo, but I value their offer at over 100k less than my public company offer.
Please give rough numbers for both. Maybe one is too high or low
Waymo is like 450 with 30 sign on. Public is like 550 with what should be 50 sign on.
Well 550 isn’t out of staff range. But yeah waymo gave low offers in my case few years ago repeatedly. If your other public company is FANG or same industry, they should match… Waymo has passed its time having a big premium imo. Self driving isn’t going to deploy soon
Just thank them for the offer and turn it down as per your previous discussions you were clear on your salary expectations. I did this and they doubled their equity offer. Then I turned it down again 😂. They don't pay well and doubtful the equity will be worth anything.
Interesting, what level? Yea, even if they doubled the equity I don’t even know if I would say yes, but at least I could give it serious consideration. I mentioned numbers in the other comment thread.
What public company? I would skip Waymo. The technology is great but the unit economics don't work. Capex depreciation per trip kills it compared to ride share. Not feasible for a very long time. I have had two rides in their cars, super impressive though.
I don’t know about their initial offers- but it’s a great product and company to work for. If you perform - there is a lot of money in bonus and stock options. Very fast progression also.
Yea, I’m excited about the company itself. Worried about the future though and hard to justify an offer like that relative to a public company. I’m including the 20% bonus in the TC, and I know it can go higher, but even at 30% or something its not really compelling.
Would help greatly if you provided numbers. Then we could say if they’re low.
I got an offer for L4 220 base 400 equity, 15% bonus and unspecified refresher.
Very good. When is it? Have competing offer?
End of '19/ beginning of ' 20 I had a good L5 FANGU job and was reluctant to leave. Got laid off 5 months later lol. Still don't regret it. Pretty sure they maxed out L4. I wanted L5 they wouldn't budge there. Fuck'em
The equity was 60/40 options/ RSUs or something like that. Worthless.
Yea, I think mine will all be RSUs, but it’s standard to discount RSUs on a private company, especially now. They want me to judge them at over a 2x premium though… like I just don’t understand the logic.
Nope, hard pass on that. Rivian pulled the same shit and look at how that panned out.
What was your interview process like? Similar to G?
Standard, 1 coding, 2 system design, 1 project deep dive. Especially loved one of the system design interviews, really unique and challenging that challenged both your knowledge and creativity to find the optimal solution.
Your understanding about the value of startup shares is wrong. I joined a serial B startup with $80k options, and it became 220X according to the latest funding round. Any startups trying to offer you a package higher than public companies really means the board isn't confident about its stock value and some risk hasn't been exposed.
Series B is different than decaunicorns. Small startups are lottery tickets likely to be worth nothing with a small chance to hit it big like you did. 10B+ companies have already seen a lot of their upside and aren’t going to 220x from here. Large private companies do 409a’s for exactly this reason to find the fair market value of the share based on company metrics. Large private companies can and often do give higher offers (Stripe, Databricks, Instacart, etc…). Having worked at a large private company like this before I have been burned. The company 5x’d while I was there, but due to the fact it was still private I could never cash out and now it’s gone down 5x in value back to where I started (likely more unrealized) and I still have 0 liquidity. Each year I don’t have access to that money is a huge negative since I remain overexposed to the company without the option to diversify. Also, it’s one thing when we’re in a bull market and private companies have lagging valuations to what they are worth. Right now those same lagging valuations are working in the opposite direction though as companies like these are likely worth far less than their last round. Joining a public company means joining a company that already took a massive and fair valuation hit, joining a private one likely means its still overvalued by 2-10x
These large private companies offer you higher paper money offers because they will be converted to share numbers by using preferred price. Isn't this the argument the waymo recruiter is trying to sell to you? The fmv preferred price ratio makes waymo be more like a series b/c company. I can easily see 10x potential with waymo. For strip, dB, instacart, I will dump their stocks immediately if I have any.
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Well, the recruiter didn’t tell you the base is not negotiable? Their recruiter is a disgrace, full of lies
The base isn’t negotiable and I knew that going in. I was expecting some reasonable negotiation on signon and equity to make a reasonable offer, but that sounds like its not happening.
L6 you can easily get 100k sign on and 1M rsu. Did you at least get that?