Employees joining some recently minted unicorn* companies are facing a triple whammy.. 1) tranched valuations are very common now means their entry strike price at that valuation is often >2x of the lead preferred price. 2) this means your strike price will be quite high and so will be your 409a. you’ll paying a pretty penny if you try to early exercise and if not then you’ll have to wait a while till they grow into that valuation. 3) stock packages seem great “on paper” but are massively inflated because of this tranched valuation. so you can say total comp is very high but the real comp is not that high (at least today). this is another reason companies chase a higher valuation so they can give lower equity raises. Make sure you go with wide eyes and use Claude/ChatGPT to do some exit math on your equity. Joining a unicorn company can offer far more than just comp (learning, experience, strong mission, great team) and that should be the core reason for joining. But do your own due diligence on the company you’re joining just like an investor would. * Not all unicorn companies are the same - some are fundamentally better and have meaningfully grown into the valuation than others. Some are growing way faster than the ones with fundamentals. Point is to do your homework vs treating every company that’s valued similarly and putting them in the same bucket.
加入一些新近晋升为 unicorn（独角兽）公司的员工，正面临“三重暴击”。1）分批估值（tranched valuations）现在非常常见，这意味着你入职时对应那个估值的行权价（strike price）通常会高于 lead preferred price 的 2 倍以上。2）这又意味着你的 strike price 会很高，409a 也会很高。如果你尝试 early exercise（提前行权），你会花上一大笔钱；如果不这么做，那你就得等一段时间，直到公司真正成长到那个估值水平。3）股票薪酬包看起来“纸面上”很漂亮，但由于这种分批估值，实际被严重抬高了。所以公司可以说 total comp（总薪酬）很高，但真实薪酬其实没那么高（至少现在如此）。这也是公司追求更高估值的另一个原因：这样它们就能用更少的股权加薪。你一定要睁大眼睛看清楚，并用 Claude/ChatGPT 给自己的股权做一些退出回报测算。加入 unicorn 公司带来的价值，可能远不止薪酬（学习、经验、强使命、优秀团队），而这些才应该是你加入的核心原因。但你也要像投资人一样，对你要加入的公司自己做好尽职调查。* 并不是所有 unicorn 公司都一样——有些公司的基本面明显更强，也确实已经实质性地成长到了那个估值；另一些则没有。有些公司的增长速度又远快于那些基本面更扎实的公司。重点是要自己做功课，而不是把所有估值相近的公司都一概而论、归到同一类里。
Flowermaxxing (fresh haul from our garden)
Flowermaxxing（我们花园里新鲜收获的一批）
> claude --dangerously-skip-permissions > /goal improve the codebase for performance and add a bit of aura
> claude --dangerously-skip-permissions > /goal 提升代码库性能，并再加一点 aura（气场）