What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn
It has always baffled me the way founders treat employees and investors so vastly asymmetric. Ive been involved in rounds close enough to see how just the &quot;hint&quot; of a potential investment and all the numbers, financials, cap tables are sent in one big email to their analyst, while some early employees (who controversially have worked just as hard as the founders) have no clue who owns what and whats going on. 
I get it without money we can&#x27;t build anything, but without good employees everything else is multiplied by 0. The math in the article is unique to the U.S but I think the &quot;essence&quot; behind it is quite universal.<p>What stops founders from offering a company wide &quot;vested Share vs. Cash&quot; with an equal cap for everyone on each new round ? 
For e.g founders planning to sell 10% of their own share while raising round in the so called &quot;Take money off table&quot;, all employees get the &#x27;right&#x27; to exercise the same option, hence instead of dilution to the new value its straight selling the value they created ? what are the arguments against this ? For the investors its the same, and if the cap of how much of the vested % you get to sell is kept realistically low it should not risk decreasing the value of the private stock.<p>while i agree with Jaymzcampbell as an employee you&#x27;re better off with dropping the &quot;hope&quot; the paper value of what you own means anything, however its contradicting to the popular piece of employee incentive tool that is quite essential in acquiring&amp; keeping good talent.