When I got multiple startup job offers, I realized how hard it was to project out a realistic value behind the equity. Guessing future valuations, dealing with dilution, and running through endless scenarios was a headache—so I built Comparator.
Comparator is a simple, free, open-source tool to help you cut through the complexity of startup compensation. Quickly see what your equity might actually be worth, factor in dilution, and easily compare your offers side by side. It’s completely free, no signups, your data never leaves the browser.
While I think it’s good advice to live as if the equity is worth zero, treating all equity as if its worth nothing, seems a bit over-reductionist when equity packages can routinely be worth millions of dollars.
Obviously it’s a crapshoot and should never be seen as a guarantee, I think treating it as zero is bit too far on the opposite extreme.
How did you get to equity packages being “routinely” worth millions when tech startups fail somewhere between 75% and >99% of the time (depending on estimates)?
Seems far more likely that startup equity will be worth zero to typical individual contributor employees, not millions
Case in point: 2 years ago i interviewed at a number of places with mind boggling valuations and most of the places I got offers from either no longer exist or laid off half their staff. It’s a lottery
By your own measure, if startups fail 99% of the time, shouldn't one value a $1M equity as $10k bonus? "Zero" does seem extreme, agree with the sentiment that "it's less than you think" but if you get lot of equity in a series-C startup, I wouldn't say that's equivalent to 0.
Probably not, because even in the 1% when the startup succeeds, there is probably some gotcha. It will turn out that your share was diluted, or your shares are not priority shares unlike the shares that your boss owns, etc... unless you are an expert, you have no idea about the dozen ways you can be screwed even in the unlikely case that the startup succeeds.
> just that it isn’t uncommon for options to be worth a lot.
You're deluding yourself here. On average, the vast, vast majority of equity options, _especially_ in the VC backed tech world, turn out to nothing for the employee.
You literally built a tool because there's so many variables, and in the majority of cases, all these variables do not align in a way that results in a payment.
This is almost the literal definition of "uncommon". It is uncommon for options to materialise into a large amount of value for employees.
I respect your tool, and I respect what you're doing. But you need to be honest with yourself and the rest of the world. If you want to help young or new people in this area, then don't perpetuate the myth that startup tech company options are statistically any better than a lottery ticket.
You'd be remiss if the company is growing and has an IPO schedule. The uncertainty over equity reduces over time. Some people hop from pre-IPO company to pre-IPO company.
I am too dumb for this. I get a salary and maybe a bonus. I never worked at a company that gave stock or options. When I do I will share the offers to someone that understands this. But I will most likely choose the company that shares my values and ignore the payout (unless it's realky a bad pay)
Even when I had multiple startup offers, "Likelihood of becoming rich" was only one column in a 13 column ranking. I ranked them in sorted order on each column, added up their ranks across columns, and accepted the one with the lowest sum of ranks. I have done this for every of my jobs and it's fine. I add or change columns each time. It has led me (eventually) to my current job which is far and away my favorite.
I kept former offers in the ranking as well, as a sort of "secretary problem" running solution.
Also, they overlap? I was recently given two days to decide on an offer after a ten week interview process. I took it and dropped out of other interviews.
Sign the first offer, continue interviewing, if you end up switching companies just write a nice email to your recruiter/manager explaining the situation. It wouldn’t be the first or last time that it’s happened.
If they refuse to give you more time (they often will, if you demand it) then just accept the offer and keep interviewing during the interim before your start date.
This implies everyone gets multiple offers. When I had 2yrs of exp. I had one company that was confident about me, the rest were kind of trying to find reasons not to hire me (except exp)
For the first interview that you get an offer, what exactly do you tell them to keep them from moving on to someone else?
Most don't extend employment offers out for months in my experience, or at least they really try to get you to agree off the bat. I imagine someone job searching is getting an interview once a week or so. Several times, I've had delays of weeks to months after just submitting an application to get the interview. So how do you just have multiple offers to juggle at any one time?
You plan about 4-6 weeks and communicate early on that you are talking to several companies, and that you plan on evaluating offers on X date. Companies will shuffle things around to meet your date if you give them time. If they aren't flex you don't want to work for them anyway.
Great. Hire them, I will go work for someone who gives the same respect that they expect.
People like you are the ones who grumble that it's hard to find good employees, or have to deal with "bad hires". I've built up and staffed teams for a long time and I understand that the best employees sometimes need flexibility. Because the good ones are all going and working for people who want to treat them like adults and understand that the person doing the hiring is just as disposable as the people attempting to be hired.
If timelines don't line up, you just say they don't line up and go your separate ways. No harm no foul.
You are hiring a cog to fit in the machine then, nothing more.
And that's fine for some people who are just "passing through" with no concept of ownership of anything. A lot of people probably.
But you're also going to miss out on people that take extreme ownership of success and failure that have really dedicated themselves to various crafts over their life and career.
You will never, ever, ever get the performance and gains by hiring a cog compared to hiring a craftsman.
This isn't necessarily true. You can hand craft a highly independent and empowered team at a large company (pets not cattle), and still have hundreds of candidates to sift through. At JPL, we did this. We were very careful about hiring, but did have many, many qualified candidates to choose from.
But I will say, we were also careful to accommodate candidate schedules as much as possible, but yes, we did pass on folks who were asking for significantly more than others. It's a balancing game.
It's kind of like how when selling a house your optimal strategy is rarely to try to appeal to the most people. Instead, modifications which greatly increase perceived value in a smaller subset (so long as it isn't too small for your personal goals) will alienate most customers but still increase the sale value in the same timespan.
When you're applying for jobs, some companies aren't willing to play that game, and if you're playing it then that's not just fine; it's ideal. You don't waste your time on companies who won't play ball. Enough will that the strategy still works.
In terms of modifying the house it depends on your local market. The general observation is that something making the house "special" tends to drive the price up rather than down. E.g., radiant heating via floor circulation can be seen as risky and novel, but enough people care that it tends to be profitable. Similarly with "risky" amenities like a backyard walking path. The location determines what a normal house is, so specifics vary wildly, but targeting a large enough sub-market is almost always better than "targeting" a wider market.
My last job search (a few months ago) I had 9 concurrent interviews going on before I had to start cancelling them and ended up with at least 3 offers before I started flat out rejecting other teams.
If you've kept up in the AI space the demand is insane. Though, ironically, I ended up taking a classical statistical modeling position because the team seemed great (and I can't resist a good, non-trivial modeling problem).
Very nice visualization, and super useful to learn more about how stocks and vestings work.
And that puts an exact number on the price of your soul, and at which point you'll go and start working for a company that doesn't share your set of values
There's some minor content overflow in the x axis. I think it wouldn't hurt to tweak the max width of the page content as I feel like it's a bit too much right now. Also not sure if I'm a fan of the animation you have going on with the quotes. Feels tacky.
When I got multiple startup job offers, I realized how hard it was to project out a realistic value behind the equity. Guessing future valuations, dealing with dilution, and running through endless scenarios was a headache—so I built Comparator.
Comparator is a simple, free, open-source tool to help you cut through the complexity of startup compensation. Quickly see what your equity might actually be worth, factor in dilution, and easily compare your offers side by side. It’s completely free, no signups, your data never leaves the browser.
Check out the app here: https://comparator-one.vercel.app
Check out the code here: https://github.com/DevonPeroutky/comparator
> figure out the real value behind the equity.
Zero. Equity is a bonus in case things work out. But for the purpose of deciding on offers - zero.
While I think it’s good advice to live as if the equity is worth zero, treating all equity as if its worth nothing, seems a bit over-reductionist when equity packages can routinely be worth millions of dollars.
Obviously it’s a crapshoot and should never be seen as a guarantee, I think treating it as zero is bit too far on the opposite extreme.
How did you get to equity packages being “routinely” worth millions when tech startups fail somewhere between 75% and >99% of the time (depending on estimates)?
Seems far more likely that startup equity will be worth zero to typical individual contributor employees, not millions
Case in point: 2 years ago i interviewed at a number of places with mind boggling valuations and most of the places I got offers from either no longer exist or laid off half their staff. It’s a lottery
Lottery tickets still have value.
Usually negative value.
By your own measure, if startups fail 99% of the time, shouldn't one value a $1M equity as $10k bonus? "Zero" does seem extreme, agree with the sentiment that "it's less than you think" but if you get lot of equity in a series-C startup, I wouldn't say that's equivalent to 0.
Probably not, because even in the 1% when the startup succeeds, there is probably some gotcha. It will turn out that your share was diluted, or your shares are not priority shares unlike the shares that your boss owns, etc... unless you are an expert, you have no idea about the dozen ways you can be screwed even in the unlikely case that the startup succeeds.
Of course most startups fail, and most equity is worth nothing.
I guess I didn’t think “routinely” implied a specific percentage, just that it isn’t uncommon for options to be worth a lot.
If even 5–10% of VC startups succeed, then it’s still worth considering the expected value of the equity when comparing job offers.
> just that it isn’t uncommon for options to be worth a lot.
You're deluding yourself here. On average, the vast, vast majority of equity options, _especially_ in the VC backed tech world, turn out to nothing for the employee.
You literally built a tool because there's so many variables, and in the majority of cases, all these variables do not align in a way that results in a payment.
This is almost the literal definition of "uncommon". It is uncommon for options to materialise into a large amount of value for employees.
I respect your tool, and I respect what you're doing. But you need to be honest with yourself and the rest of the world. If you want to help young or new people in this area, then don't perpetuate the myth that startup tech company options are statistically any better than a lottery ticket.
You'd be remiss if the company is growing and has an IPO schedule. The uncertainty over equity reduces over time. Some people hop from pre-IPO company to pre-IPO company.
I am too dumb for this. I get a salary and maybe a bonus. I never worked at a company that gave stock or options. When I do I will share the offers to someone that understands this. But I will most likely choose the company that shares my values and ignore the payout (unless it's realky a bad pay)
This is the way.
Even when I had multiple startup offers, "Likelihood of becoming rich" was only one column in a 13 column ranking. I ranked them in sorted order on each column, added up their ranks across columns, and accepted the one with the lowest sum of ranks. I have done this for every of my jobs and it's fine. I add or change columns each time. It has led me (eventually) to my current job which is far and away my favorite.
I kept former offers in the ranking as well, as a sort of "secretary problem" running solution.
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Y'all are getting multiple job offers?
Also, they overlap? I was recently given two days to decide on an offer after a ten week interview process. I took it and dropped out of other interviews.
Sign the first offer, continue interviewing, if you end up switching companies just write a nice email to your recruiter/manager explaining the situation. It wouldn’t be the first or last time that it’s happened.
IANAL, the above isn’t legal advice, yada yada.
If they refuse to give you more time (they often will, if you demand it) then just accept the offer and keep interviewing during the interim before your start date.
I'd be cautious of this strategy, reneging has consequences both for the company that you ditch and the company that you eventually sign with
We pulled an offer we made because one of our candidates apparently had already accepted an earlier offer from another startup.
That is the best way to max your salary. Interview with as many companies as possible, get as many offers as you can, and pit them against each other.
This implies everyone gets multiple offers. When I had 2yrs of exp. I had one company that was confident about me, the rest were kind of trying to find reasons not to hire me (except exp)
For the first interview that you get an offer, what exactly do you tell them to keep them from moving on to someone else?
Most don't extend employment offers out for months in my experience, or at least they really try to get you to agree off the bat. I imagine someone job searching is getting an interview once a week or so. Several times, I've had delays of weeks to months after just submitting an application to get the interview. So how do you just have multiple offers to juggle at any one time?
You plan about 4-6 weeks and communicate early on that you are talking to several companies, and that you plan on evaluating offers on X date. Companies will shuffle things around to meet your date if you give them time. If they aren't flex you don't want to work for them anyway.
No. I am not going to "shuffle things around". You are playing the hard to get, good for you.
For my part, I have hundreds of other candidates to choose from.
Great. Hire them, I will go work for someone who gives the same respect that they expect.
People like you are the ones who grumble that it's hard to find good employees, or have to deal with "bad hires". I've built up and staffed teams for a long time and I understand that the best employees sometimes need flexibility. Because the good ones are all going and working for people who want to treat them like adults and understand that the person doing the hiring is just as disposable as the people attempting to be hired.
If timelines don't line up, you just say they don't line up and go your separate ways. No harm no foul.
You are hiring a cog to fit in the machine then, nothing more.
And that's fine for some people who are just "passing through" with no concept of ownership of anything. A lot of people probably.
But you're also going to miss out on people that take extreme ownership of success and failure that have really dedicated themselves to various crafts over their life and career.
You will never, ever, ever get the performance and gains by hiring a cog compared to hiring a craftsman.
Just depends on the org priorities.
This isn't necessarily true. You can hand craft a highly independent and empowered team at a large company (pets not cattle), and still have hundreds of candidates to sift through. At JPL, we did this. We were very careful about hiring, but did have many, many qualified candidates to choose from.
But I will say, we were also careful to accommodate candidate schedules as much as possible, but yes, we did pass on folks who were asking for significantly more than others. It's a balancing game.
Familiar with JPL datacenter, I was working at USDA NITC DISC under OCIO during the competition for certain other gov contracts.
Sounds like you're not there anymore, but Thank You.
I mean, you're both correct.
It's kind of like how when selling a house your optimal strategy is rarely to try to appeal to the most people. Instead, modifications which greatly increase perceived value in a smaller subset (so long as it isn't too small for your personal goals) will alienate most customers but still increase the sale value in the same timespan.
When you're applying for jobs, some companies aren't willing to play that game, and if you're playing it then that's not just fine; it's ideal. You don't waste your time on companies who won't play ball. Enough will that the strategy still works.
I haven't heard this about houses; any examples? Would it be something like replacing the kitchen?
In terms of modifying the house it depends on your local market. The general observation is that something making the house "special" tends to drive the price up rather than down. E.g., radiant heating via floor circulation can be seen as risky and novel, but enough people care that it tends to be profitable. Similarly with "risky" amenities like a backyard walking path. The location determines what a normal house is, so specifics vary wildly, but targeting a large enough sub-market is almost always better than "targeting" a wider market.
Y'all are getting multiple interviews?
My last job search (a few months ago) I had 9 concurrent interviews going on before I had to start cancelling them and ended up with at least 3 offers before I started flat out rejecting other teams.
If you've kept up in the AI space the demand is insane. Though, ironically, I ended up taking a classical statistical modeling position because the team seemed great (and I can't resist a good, non-trivial modeling problem).
Excellent! I just need to find offers...
Reminder to turn "Show scroll bars" to "Always" if you're developing on MacOS for users on the web.
Very nice visualization, and super useful to learn more about how stocks and vestings work. And that puts an exact number on the price of your soul, and at which point you'll go and start working for a company that doesn't share your set of values
There's some minor content overflow in the x axis. I think it wouldn't hurt to tweak the max width of the page content as I feel like it's a bit too much right now. Also not sure if I'm a fan of the animation you have going on with the quotes. Feels tacky.
I was thinking of building something similar along with explaining the salary breakdown and how much in-hand salary you will get from your CTC.
Loved the initial loading animation. You should also launch this on Peerlist Launchpad, many devs gonna love it.
Very cool. Even if it's hard to model future valuations with any certainty, I would still want to have a tidy comparison like this.
Totally agree, any data points to help make an informed decision between multiple offers is helpful
your logo should be more like com<pear emoji>ator, the way it is now sounds like "comppearre"
Nice one!
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