If a company is offering 20% equity what does that actually mean?

Can anyone explain?

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It's basically stock options that vest over time. Lot's of ifs, ands and buts around it though so definitely read through the offer carefully.

636-555-3226

Could mean a few things depending on the wording, but my guess is it means you'll be entitled to 20% of any profits they're making. 20% is a big number, so my guess is it's a new company, an important role, and a LOT of risk of failure. also a lot of potential reward if it goes well

the_Grinch

My buddy changed his entire life on a deal like this. Lost his job after moving and was floating around looking for work. Small firm called him (he had interviewed with them years prior, but turned them down...they were still interested) and since he was hard up he took the job. Pay was decent, but they added options/equity to entice him a bit. Three or four months later VMWare buys them out. He made enough to pay off all of his debt (student loans, car, etc) and got brought on to VMWare making big bucks.

So definitely review it throughly, but if it works out you could do very very well.

DatabaseHead

Cool story......

networker050184

636-555-3226 wrote: »

Could mean a few things depending on the wording, but my guess is it means you'll be entitled to 20% of any profits they're making. 20% is a big number, so my guess is it's a new company, an important role, and a LOT of risk of failure. also a lot of potential reward if it goes well

That's not usually the case with equity offers in my experience. That would be more along the lines of profit sharing.

sj4088

networker050184 wrote: »

That's not usually the case with equity offers in my experience. That would be more along the lines of profit sharing.

Yeah, I just got more details. Unfortunately it's not the 20% profit sharing. Of course I already knew that. This is a major company already making billions. So basically it's kind of like what you said earlier, stock options that vest over time. Still don't know how the 20% come into play. 20% of what? I'm going to have to get in contact with HR.

soccarplayer29

Since you say it's a large company it obviously wouldn't be 20% of what the company is worth or anything like that. I'm guessing it's like a bonus structure and you're eligible to receive vesting stock options each year equivalent to 20% of your base salary. Then they'll probably have metrics/performance stuff you'll need to hit in order to obtain that 20% and then the stock options will vest over time.

Pass along more details when you hear from HR!

sj4088

soccarplayer29 wrote: »

Since you say it's a large company it obviously wouldn't be 20% of what the company is worth or anything like that. I'm guessing it's like a bonus structure and you're eligible to receive vesting stock options each year equivalent to 20% of your base salary. Then they'll probably have metrics/performance stuff you'll need to hit in order to obtain that 20% and then the stock options will vest over time.

Pass along more details when you hear from HR!

Update**

I get a 20% sign on bonus, 20% cash bonus and 20% equity bonus. I needed to read the fine print closer. Still need to confirm with HR though.

It's a 110K salary. So I get a 22k sign on bonus, 22K cash bonus and another 22K of stocks vested over three years. So 176K total. Pretty sweet!

Of course the bonuses are if I hit certain metrics.

DatabaseHead

Drinks on you.

sj4088

DatabaseHead wrote: »

Drinks on you.

Indeed! lol