Readit NewsI don't have time to go into details but the very big problems you could encounter mainly revolve around misses on compliance because you took a very lax approach to Finance ie. accounting standards, tax rules, payroll records, stock options and more. Just as a very simple example - I've seen a $1 million MRR company get eviscerated for not paying attention to something as basic as sales tax rules.
If you just raised a $30-60+ million Series A and are relying on anything in this article, you will have bigger problems. It is this self-righteous approach to finance/accounting that gets companies into trouble down the line.
Where in the hell can you buy a house today with a blue collar job at any of those companies?
Saying low productivity hurts the economy is just a factual assertion. How we do or dont solve it and who wins /loses in those scenarios is a political decision
Unlike many of our problems of the last decade, yelling at economics on twitter wont cancel it and make the problem go away
I don't mean that I'm being reckless (I'm reckless sometimes). I trust my gut to have some actual basis in knowledge. Another thing that I've learned to do as I get older is to freely say "I don't know" if I don't have a "gut" idea of what a decision should be. I will happily defer to someone else who convinces me that they do know in those situations (which is another gut call really, of whether to trust someone else).
In any case, I am a strong believer in making a decision and following through with it (within reason), rather than stagnating forever in indecision and research. Some research yes, if necessary, but at some point you have to pick a direction and go.
Edit to directly address the need for data: I'm firmly behind data-based decision making. Two arguments come to mind against "most gut decisions are wrong":
1. When I make a gut decision, it's based on data that I've collected at some point.
2. Pertinent to my first point, but also to data collected more consciously in preparation for a decision. Data is also wrong sometimes and misleading often.
I go back to my idea that making a decision is better than not making a decision, usually. The next step is objectively monitoring the consequences and bailing out if you were wrong. Denial is much worse than making that wrong decision to begin with.
I view it as the vector of my past experiences and knowledge. Though, I do have to be careful not to conflate gut with excess of any emotion ex. greed, hope etc. I am also carefully aware of when the "rules of the game" might be changing but that might be the "data" you are describing.
There's no right or wrong answer what should or shouldn't be part of compensation, nor how much. 0% isn't any more or less "correct" than 2% or 0.2% or 20%.
If you don't like your compensation, negotiate harder. In your case, it sounds like you perceive the pay is already lower than you could get elsewhere, so there's not much of a trade to give. Basically, you believe you're worth a lot more than the company does, and also, it's personally important to you that you have equity in the company. That's fine. Either tell them that (and be ready to move on - there's probably not a satisfactory outcome), or simply accept that the parties disagree on how valuable this role is and move on.
I just want to add that OP should negotiate for the future and not get too hung up on trying to recover the past or think they are entitled to any equity appreciation they missed out on. Sticking too much to principle might just leave resentment lingering. While it is possible to negotiate to make up for the past I think there is more value in focusing on the future.
ie. Even if OP negotiated harder now, the equity is unlikely to be gifted to make up for the past. It may come in the form of vesting options but that will likely be structured to only gain value from the time of grant (now) onwards. That... or OP will get lower % equity than would have been received in the past. Knowing this, I think it is still better to correct it going forwards than worry about any missed appreciation.
$30m–60m+ Series A rounds are extreme outliers, especially in 2023, and the $1m MRR number you quoted in another comment is 5x higher than where most Series A companies are at.
Would genuinely appreciate feedback on anything specific in the post that you disagree with, with that target audience in mind :)