What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn
As always the main rule you need to live by is value the equity at zero and you'll be (maybe) happy. Short of being a founder (and thus not really being offered equity) I have never treated these things as anything beyond a minor on paper "bonus". Given you'd be lucky to get anything more than 1% even as a first employee I find them next to worthless as early stage motivators. Which is how everyone seems to play it - "we're all in this together" - mmm. As long as the salary is market rate I ignore equity altogether.