Hi Blind community, Need some help with opinion on staying at G till December or which startup (A or B) to join. Profile : - 3ish years at Google. - Total YEO : 4.5 in ML and 4 in Software (Per Masters in embedded domain so really doesn't count) - ML/AI domain and want to work in core domain. - Top 5 CS Masters - No interest in working for FAANG or any big public companies - Very motivated to work in startup with big addressable market, great founding team and take risk. - Only looking for 100 Million to $5B valuation companies with big addressable market Google : - TC : 500k (530ish by year end) - Cliff coming in April next year. - Promo denied last cycle as startup project got discontinued. - Just joined new team and have no motivation to work at Google, my startup experience made me realize that I want to work for Startup and Build ML products from ground up. - Only motivation is cashing out my RSU (Inflated recently and I am pretty confident G will reach $2800-$3000 by year end). Catch with these startup offers : PTE (golden handcuffed). If I leave the company after few years of working (Before IPO), I have to let the options go away or pay a very heavy price to buy the options and pay huge tax on the money which I may or may not have. So, this is unrealistic for me. Any thoughts on this if anyone has joined the startup and faced this problem ? Got the following offers: 1) Startup A (Series B) $200k base and .1 equity. Valuation 500 million - Very solid company and founding team. - Really enjoyed the conversation with CTO, CEO and other cofounders and loved the vision. - Totally sold on the product and great ML opportunity here for me to solve hard ML problems and grow. - Very scalable business and big market. - Most engineers are from top tier companies - IPO timeline is far (assume that I won't be here) - Upside potential is high like 10x in 4 years and 30-50x in 7-8 years. 2) Startup B (Series C): 200k base and 10k RSU over 4 years. $500 Million valuation. - AI domain and top tier engineers. - very less equity. - Cool product (like Palantir). - Didn't get full clarity on addressable market but from a talk with PM, this won't grow exponentially. - IPO in 4-5 years. 3) Startup C ( Series C): $190k + 0.04 Equity at $400 Million valuation. - Founding engineer in ML team - Healthcare domain do the business is not scalable. - Will likely decline it. 4) C3 AI: - Getting an offer today. - From what I read, this is not a great company so will likely decline this too. Update : Rejected offers from Startup B, C. Final contestants are G till Dec or A. Followed by gut feeling and went with startup A. Thanks a lot Blind community for the input. Picked what I am more passionate about. Thanks #startup #google #offers #equity
Make it a poll and you’ll get a better idea
What's the timeline like for options 1 and 2? In their ideal projected scenario, what does your upside look like in those cases? How much would you make at IPO?
Option 1
How to deal with PTE thing ? If I leave before IPO, I will lose everything.
is goog your first job? What’s your total yoe?
yoe matters when evaluating offers. Without knowing that, it’s hard to tell
What a baller! Congratulations!! 👏👏👏
Thanks 😊
Very analytical approach and clear goal in deciding next move. I am just curious that you seem not want to wait for B's IPO in 4-5 years. So assuming you pick A and A's IPO is even longer than 4-5 years, are you going to stay there for 5 years and move on? In other words, 5-year is the visibility range for now.
What is startup B? Just curious as you have said about it's product is "like Palantir".
Sorry, no names.
Can you provide the numbers you got from C3 AI?
Look into if you can 83b early exercise some of your options at Startup A. If you’re optimistic about the company this is a good way to soften the future tax hit. Keep in mind you should only exercise an amount you can afford to lose.
Thanks ! Doing that only.
Are you sure that the company is issuing ISOs with a short expiration window if you leave the company? I’ve heard that a number of places are giving NSOs, they don’t have the same tax advantages as ISOs, but they do allow for a 10 year expiration period. Either way, you sound excited about Company A, we only have so many opportunities to work at a smaller company. I hope you go for it, and I hope it goes great. Google isn’t going anywhere, and you can always buy their stock.
Sorry. No names. Privacy.
Ha ha ha. It starts with C. Does that sounds familiar ?