Job Offer Stock Options - How Much Should be Disclosed?
tptacek: It's obviously completely meaningless to give prospective employees a count of options without the information needed to value them. It's fundamentally disrespectful, and it also communicates the idea that options don't have a hard value, but that they're instead an abstract point score system.On the other hand:(1) "Everyone" does it this way.(2) Candidates are likely to be irrational about equity; for instance, 0.5% sounds like a very small number, but for a company charting the kind of exit that an A-rounded-funded company needs to get, it's not a small number.(3) The reality is that nothing you commit to employees regarding your equity matters anyways; I'm sorry to be overly cynical, but, it's going to get rewritten at every funding round and at exit. Especially if you're starting out tranched.