> I believe this entire document was written to anchor new employees with lowered expectations on equity. I think this entire document is a disingenuous scam to make new startup employees think that those percentages are okay.
Have to love the HN crowd. A guy goes out of his way to write a very detailed, high-quality guide demystifying a very complex and consequential topic, open sources it so it's free, and immediately people suspect the entire document is build just to make startup employees think lower percentages are OK?
Disclaimer: I know the author personally, so can definitely attest to the motivation behind this guide. I'll also say I've used this guide both as a founder and as a startup employee and it's been immensely helpful.
Both can be true!
The fact that you are a founder that agrees with these extremely low equity percentages for early employees confirms exactly my point. It's to anchor lowered expectations for new employees coming in.
I stand by exactly what I wrote.
Genuinely curious. What percentages do you think are fair and why? As both a founder and employee, I anchored to the market. But maybe the market isn't fair. So what is?