Resources
Negotiating Equity Grants
Equity can be tricky to understand. This is especially true for first time founders, first time venture backed startup employees, or people that haven't felt they received value from previous startups. A lot of times people don't understand the potential value or lack thereof. Be sure to include resources that drive this point home and not make any promises on future equity value.
Each individual will also optimize for their goals. It's important to note this down in some negotiations or discussions. This can be through an email, slack thread, etc. that you can revert back to. A passage like the following is nice to be able to write where an executive, hr or finance team member could be accused of being "unfair" down the line when equity value swings one way or the other:
Take a look at our Slack message from October 1, 20XX. It looks like when we made the grant you were optimizing for a higher base salary that was above market and company standard in lieu of the proposed equity grant. I completely understand if your goals are different now, but let's discuss what that can look like going forward.