

Ask HN: What was the "value" of your shares when you joined your startup? - deanmoriarty

I wanted to create a poll but my karma is not high enough, so I&#x27;ll have to stick to an Ask HN.<p>I read so many articles about first startup employees getting screwed from a financial point of view, and usually the rule of thumb is &quot;unless you&#x27;re very lucky and your company will sell&#x2F;go public BIG, your economic reward will not be substantial&quot;.<p>So, fully aware of the literature around and of the basic math that can be done to confirm the previous sentence, my question for HN is: at the time you were hired as one of the first employees (non-(co)founder) in your startup (let&#x27;s say for the sake of it &lt; 10 employees), what was the post-money evaluation absolute value of your shares?
For the poll, I&#x27;d calculate it this way:<p>value = percentage_granted * post_money_valuation<p>I am really simplifying this, so let&#x27;s just say I&#x27;m not interested in how much the salary cut was and what was the state of the investing or the specific risk of failure.
I really just want to know the percentage you were given relative to the value of the company decided by the investor(s) at the time you were hired.<p>Thanks.
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akavi
Remember that "post money valuation" is for preferred shares and options are
usually granted on common shares.

409a valuations usually value common shares at a fraction of preferred shares,
and for good reason.

