The one thing I saw missing from the application was a salary floor / expectation. I currently support my wife on my salary, and wouldn't be able to work for less than a certain amount. I would apply through this for a lot of startups, but I wouldn't want to go through the entire interview process and realize that they can't pay me what I need to support my family.
I don't think you will encounter the following problem: "I wouldn't want to go through the entire interview process and realize that they can't pay me what I need to support my family."
After filling out an application the next step is that a YC founder will reach out to you. You can literally talk about salary requirements in the first conversation.
No thank you. I'm not 19 anymore. I'll take the high paying job, and dump the rest into Vanguard funds. Guarantee I'll make more money off of the majority of nonsense stock options.
Lottery tickets have a predictable value. Lottery tickets and cash are basically interchangeable goods, and if you have the ability to bear the risk that any given lottery ticket might not pay out then you can make money by taking on that risk. It's not really any different than being a VC, an insurance company, a movie producer, etc.
It’s not cash, and has questionable value. Equity is no replacement for cash compensation, and it’s exhausting to watch people explain it away as equal to cash comp.
Options have an expected value (EV) that isn't too hard to calculate approximately. They also have a relatively high variance. But it's trivially easy to prove they're not worthless, even if some become so when the company fails. I've personally had one "hit" and a few misses.
Whether to accept options instead of salary is an individual choice that depends entirely on their risk profile and the terms...how much salary are you forgoing, how much equity are you getting, how likely do you believe a liquidity event is.
If you could sit at a roulette table that paid 40-1 when you hit a number, would you play? That's a +EV bet despite the fact that 32/33 times that bet will lose. If you had infinite funds and infinite bets, you'd be a fool not to play. But if you're betting you last dollar, you're probably going hungry that night since you'll be losing 32 times as often as you win. And that same bet at the traditional 32-1 is a loser no matter how much money you have. The terms of the bet and the individual's circumstances dictate whether to play.
Options are the same, you just need to be familiar enough with the whole situation to judge the terms you're getting. Many startups are very good at selling the upside and underselling the risk, so people give away salary at -EV terms. But that doesn't mean that equity is worthless.
Again, much like being an insurance provider, that's how you make money off it. When I do consulting I generally aim to capture about 10% of the value I'm creating per hour in cash, leaving the client with the other 90%. (E.g. billing $200 per hour if you're creating 2,000 per hour in value or whatever.) This is basically an equal exchange because one party is getting the cash, and the other party is getting the risk, along with the potential benefit that taking on that risk entails.
The fact that different people have different economic needs and utility functions allows everyone to benefit. That's why I'm saying that if you need less cash because you don't have a family, that represents optionality, and that optionality can be used to make more money than you'd otherwise be able to make.
Asking for salary information upfront in California -- where most YC companies are -- will be illegal on Jan 1st. Many companies seem to be complying with this requirement already. In fact even asking a price floor might be illegal, as salary information can only be used in determining the salary if it was provided "voluntarily and without prompting." [0]
It sounds to me like the GP was interested in companies proactively providing the salary range for the job, which doesn't seem to fall under the new law. The new changes also wouldn't prohibit an employer from asking for a desired salary range, would it?
I'm not a lawyer, but the actual law says "An employer shall not, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, seek salary history information, including compensation and benefits, about an applicant for employment." It would probably be up to a judge to determine whether asking for a range could be construed as asking for "salary history." Considering this law is a misdemeanor, which means the potential for jail time, I'd stay on the side of caution until some test cases come out.
The original comment is about the interviewee making sure that the employer is offering a salary above a certain threshold, before going through the whole interview process. This doesn't have anything to do with the employer asking about past salary information.
