Yes. People I&#x27;ve worked with regularly ask me for advice negotiating new jobs --- I have no idea why --- and this is my standard answer.<p>There are three kinds of cases where I&#x27;ve seen this information being hard to get:<p>1. Equity isn&#x27;t a major part of compensation, and salaries are market-competitive. The employer says, in essence, &quot;equity is not an important part of your compensation; let&#x27;s concentrate on making sure you&#x27;re happy with the salary and bonuses&quot;.<p>2. It&#x27;s a relatively large company that is constantly hiring people, and they have a strong BATNA.<p>3. They simply don&#x27;t know the answer, and the person hiring you isn&#x27;t in a position to work with you to generate the answer (that work being &quot;make three wild guesses at where revenue will be in 5 years, do a little research on what multiples companies are acquired for in their space, and figure out how much runway they have now&quot;). If you know the % of the company you&#x27;re getting, the dollars invested, and what the liquidation preferences are, you can come up with a somewhat decent guess here on your own.<p>If you&#x27;re a key hire and equity is a significant part of your compensation, you should be able to get this information.<p>If equity is a significant part of your compensation, then, no matter what, you should be able to get:<p>* The number of basis points you&#x27;re getting in the company<p>* The dollars invested in the company so far<p>* The company&#x27;s revenue target for the year<p>* How much runway the company has at current headcount<p>If you can&#x27;t get all of these, value equity at zero.