&gt; 150k guaranteed comp, 25k bonus, 75k vesting equity is low for the companies w&#x2F; equity run-ups in the past several years, in my opinion.<p>You&#x27;re right, assuming that everything continues as it has.  Nothing is guaranteed; that 150k can vanish in a puff of smoke through no fault of your own, and take all your unvested comp along with it.<p>&gt; the bonus is basically guaranteed.<p>No, it is not.  Many, many people will tell you of their time spent at BigCo when the economy is <i>not</i> booming, and after the free donuts, the first thing that goes is the bonus.  You have to read the bonus plan very carefully to understand how it&#x27;s computed.  It&#x27;s quite possible that your bonus at Facebook or whatever depends solely on your own rating, but at most companies that&#x27;s just the final multiplier and all kinds of other things have to happen in order for the bonus pool to exist at all.  In even mild headwinds, it&#x27;s likely that only a part of the expected bonus will be paid, and not unusual for there to be none at all.  Furthermore, the bonus plan is usually determined one year at a time, so the fact that whatever needed to happen this year for everyone to be paid at 100% did happen is no guarantee that the criteria in next year&#x27;s plan will be satisfied.<p>Do not assume that the future looks exactly like the recent past.  It is certainly possible that the near future will be even <i>better</i> than the recent past, but at least some kind of mean reversion is a hell of a lot more likely.  I predict that very few people will end up receiving as much total cash for their work over the next 5 years as their simplistic and rosy-eyed calculations of today would indicate.