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If you go to work for a big established company, they won't give you part of it.

On the contrary! Just yesterday I got an email from an Amazon recruiter that says:

We also offer:
- Stock Package, free shares given to you (no purchasing required)

It seems like it's pretty normal for people to get equity from big companies. Not even just tech companies: people I know working at Nike get stock every year too.

Also I question this:

The fifth employee will get much more than the hundredth.

Maybe, but the thousandth will get "more" than the hundredth if you measure it in dollars times probability-of-cashing-it-out. VCs talk about how the size of the pie matters more than the percentage of your share, and I think that applies here too.

It seems like it's pretty normal for people to get equity from big companies.

Right, but equity at big, established companies generally isn't worth potentially $1M+. From what I've seen, it's around $20-50k/year and a calculated part of the compensation package.

Disagree with that. In recent years you are way more likely to make $1M from stock grants from companies like Google, Facebook and Amazon than even the top startups.

Wow. For a new grad, yes. For those later on it can be more than half your income. A $300k package from companies here can be 180/120 salary/stock split. $300k is not uncommon at all at big co. Some company will cap salary and then all future gains are in stock+bonus.

Not true, it's often easily worth $150k/year, on top of your $120-180k salary.

Where would one* have higher expected value for the equity grant - at BigCo's like GAFAM or at Unicorns like Uber/Lyft/AirBnB/Pinterest/Slack/... or an even earlier stage startup?

* would these values be different for a new grad vs a senior engineer?

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