a. Startup equity is a lottery
b. As an early employee and the accompanying biases, I'm especially ill equipped to judge it's value.
With that in mind, I'm negotiating salary first. Equity with a vesting schedule is something I would treat purely as an incentive for continuing to stay with the company and not as a replacement for salary.
This sounds very sensible. I would note though that equity % points are much easier to negotiate early on. If you have an opportunity to secure options at a low valuation now, even with a great big cliff / vesting term, take them in case the company is a success and use the cliff / vesting to persuade the current owners that it's a win win.
I'm well aware that:
a. Startup equity is a lottery b. As an early employee and the accompanying biases, I'm especially ill equipped to judge it's value.
With that in mind, I'm negotiating salary first. Equity with a vesting schedule is something I would treat purely as an incentive for continuing to stay with the company and not as a replacement for salary.