ESOPs

Hello All, I interviewed with a startup recently and some of their policies around esops was something I encountered for the first time in my career, so wanted the expert advice of the community on next steps. Surprise one: ESOPs will be allocated post probation period of 3 months and vesting starts from there and not the date of joining, I was surprised on this but upon discussion with the company POC I was given a reason of the legal fees involved, which sounds fair but the vesting schedule is it employee favourable? Surprise two: They shared an offer letter with only the fixed component and said ESOPs will be evaluated post completion of probation period basis performance. Upon further discussing in this I was informed that this is a standard format their VC(sequoia, a16z and elevation) have approved. Is this true because I asked around few of my friends and all of them said esops are an integral part of the startup compensation and all of my and their offer letters historically had esops mentioned along with their value. Wrt to point 2 an I asking too much or some practice has changed in the industary which I’m unaware about. Also esop value post probation evaluation, is it employee friendly as the employee is in non negotiable position, isn’t it ?

I have 6 years experience. My current base/fixed is 60 LPA. (I also got a 5 lakh bonus and 5 lakh of my ESOPs vested this year making my total vested about 30 lakh. So the total comp is 70). I'm being offered a senior engineer position in an early stage startup (as part of the founding engineer team). They haven't given an offer yet. Being early stage, the emphasis will most likely be on ESOPs. How do I evaluate this and set my expectations? (If I were to switch to a mature company, I believe the hikes usually are between 15-20%? How does this work for early stage startups?)

Currently in talks with the CEO of a small international startup (less than 10 total members spread across 4 countries). My existing profile is an exact match for what they are looking for in a candidate (they are implementation partners of my existing company's software). I am pretty close to closing it but now he wishes to know my existing salary. I tried to avoid sharing it but he wants to know it before quoting anything to me. I wish to get a huge raise (80-100%) since i will be moving from a known brand to an unknown startup with all the skills they need and more from Day 1. Any tips on how I can handle this situation?

Truths about ESOP 101 After working in multiple fast growth startup’s and having been part of multiple buybacks as well as being in the startup ecosystem for a decade I want to put to bear my pov about creating wealth through ESOP. Like any other randomised event, ESOP also follows Pareto principle which means a very small number of people within the company ever make sizable wealth that they elevate to the top 0.1% of the country. The Pareto also applies with companies; significantly small minority of companies in India have employee friendly policies which enables an employee to create wealth. Most startup’s have dark patterns within their esop policy which either locks you in for insufferable durations or forces you to pay exorbitant taxes to gain the right to exercise your esops when you are leaving the company. Survivorship bias plays a huge role in enabling the narrative that esop is a great wealth generating tool leading to rude awakening for an employee after they join a company. This doesn’t mean you can’t make wealth, it just means don’t get carried away by narratives and take preventable errors in your career. Always talk to multiple people in startup’s and ask relevant questions to understand esop policies better. Like everything else optimising only for esop for wealth creation will mostly not result in it.

Hey folks, So I work as a product intern and have an offer to join full time as an Associate Product Manager at a Fintech B2B startup upon graduating. So cutting to the chase, Recently I have been under tremendous pressure to deliver a product. Our organisation does not have any senior product manager to help guide and I report directly to the CEO. I have been given far too much responsibility and an extremely sophisticated product has been put in my care. This product requires a lot of technical expertise and we do not have that kind of resources. I have put this point across to my boss multiple times over the past few months and he always says we will do it. He goes and promises clients that this product exists they even did a soft launch of this product when we literally have not built more than a few screens. Our company has a high employee turnover and people keep quitting left right and centre due to the Co-founders toxic attitude. Recently I have been feeling very anxious starting work in the mornings. Most days go late into the nights because the Co founders work in a different time zone. So the dilemma here is this, I feel the urge to quit this job but at the same time I am afraid that another opportunity will not present itself soon. They also pay me pretty well compared to other product intern roles out there. I know a lot of people are out there fighting for a product intern or an APM role and here I have it and am considering quitting. Please feel free to ask me any follow up questions and forgive me if it sounded more like a rant. I am open to hearing your advise. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

So i got the ESOPs in my current company and now they want me to exercise it as it is mandatory to exercise the ESOP in a certain period of time. What will happen once I exercise it?? Also i am thinking of quitting the company so what will happen to the exercised ESOP if I leave the company?? Please give any resources to understand the complete what, how and when of the ESOPs and general summary regarding it

Guys, what are your successful ESOP stories? How much did you made? And what did you do with that money?

Hello guys, I would want to know what is the benefit of getting ESOPs in an early stage startup? The startup has a great team and working on a promising product. I have been offered a package with somewhat lower fixed component and somewhat higher ESOPs. Need insightful pointers here. TIA :)