Startup Comp Cost-Benefit Analysis
Context
One thing that I tend to do is go back and calculate the cost-benefit analysis of taking a startup offer vs a public traded company. Obviously financial upside is one of the most important reasons why people join startups1 and people tend to poorly calculate how much they are actually making. I have a spreadsheet I have kept locally over the years that I fill out with various information about my stock grants. It contains calculations of my yearly compensation over the years given stock grants, bonuses and what not. I haven't been able to find a good online calculator that does this for me so I've taken the spread sheet and made a simplified version to calculate comp over the years and benchmark against a public company with liquid stock.As part of the calculations, I have made the assumption that you would have received the same compensation plan at the public company as the startup. Surely, IRL, theres probably _some_ difference. But a high performing individual will have high performance anywhere.
1The usual corporate bullshit answer you get is "I work here because I love the [impact|culture|ownership|scope|etc]" but while that may be true, given a crap salary and poor financial upside, would the people who "love it" still be here? Be serious.
1. ISO Grants
Add all your grants. Each can have a different vesting schedule.
| Year Granted | Shares | Strike Price ($) | Vesting |
|---|
2. Yearly Comp
Set your salary and company share price per year. Vesting and equity are auto-calculated from grants above.
| Year | Salary ($) | Company Share Price ($) | YoY Growth | Shares Vesting | Equity Value ($) | Total Comp ($) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total | - | - | - | - |
3. Public Company Benchmark
What if you had the same total comp at a public company? Uses real split-adjusted historical prices per year.
Free key from alphavantage.co (25 req/day). Prices are split-adjusted.