How to trade off between base salary and RSUs in an offer?

Question

I am curious what do people think is a good trade off between base salary and RSUs in an offer? E.g., given a 4 year grant, trading $1 in base salary for $4 in stocks is a poor choice because the RSUs will expire after 4 years whereas the base salary will continue to stay. Also base salary is given every paycheck whereas stocks don't vest with every paycheck. Does anyone have a formula they have developed to trade in salary vs stocks that takes into account duration and vesting of RSUs?

7nh139rfdhg4xju · Accepted Answer

this doesn't account for refreshers though

barraiser · Answer

If stock prices are low, I'd be okay with $4 in RSU for every $1 in base. If stock price is higher than usual in cycle, I'd ask for a higher multiplier and a healthy base since otherwise you'd be getting fewer shares. Most public companies seem to be more willing to give away stock since it vests and improves employee retention, but also stock is variable and can decline or grow so rlly comes down to preference.

6ym891ukphg5xkq · Answer

A lot of startups these days will already give you a scale where you can choose between options between low equity, high base and high equity lower base (and you can model a function between those ranges to find something to your liking in between).

For companies with options, this is a good modeling tool: https://tldroptions.io/

linuxftw · Answer

I think generally this will depend on how early you are at a company. If your company is private and you know they'll fundraise soon, then you should value your stocks a bit higher than usual because likely there is going to be some multiple applied to it shortly

How to trade off between base salary and RSUs in an offer?

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