Dylan Hunter

Another excellent Top X list from Guy Kawasaki - this time from the point of view of the candidate who’s evaluating offers from that guy who’s telling you you’re about to help build The Next Google(tm).

Though I personally got beat on the “How much cash is in the bank?” question while at WebMap, (insist on seeing the actual bank statements! ) and the liquidation preference one, (which, luckily, I’ve yet to run afoul of) now goes into the queue of questions for me to remember, what I found most interesting here was the %’s of the company you should be expecting for joining after they’ve already raised a $1-3M round, and have approx 15 employees, (i.e. so, already have a reasonably solid company up and working). ‘Course, they come with the standard disclaimers, but certainly at least make interesting rough guidelines:

• Senior engineer: .3 - .7%
• Mid-level engineer: .2 - .4%
• Product manager: .2 - .3%
• Architect, i.e., the “main (wo)man,” though an individual contributor: 1 - 1.5%
• Vice presidents: 1.5 - 3%
• CEO, i.e., “adult supervision” brought in to replace the founder: 5 - 10%