Sam Parr started with 0.5% equity but acted like he owned the whole company. His founders noticed and bumped his stake to 10%, then 20%. He argues that focusing on creating value and working like an owner matters more than negotiating your initial percentage.
I remember when I got this job, I'd seen in the tech industry, if you join a startup, you might earn like 1% or less. You don't get more than 1%. You get like 0.4%, 0.5%, 0.6%, 0.2% of the company. And that just sounds like a minuscule number. But I wanted to go there and treat this like it was my own startup. So I remember telling him on the phone, don't tell me out of how many shares. I'd rather not know. I want to work like this is my company. Like I own 100% of this. That's how much I'm going to care. And he was like, good answer. If you pick the right people to work with, they will reward you based on what value you're actually creating without you needing to ask. And so it turns out I had 0.5% 4% at the time. Then he bumped me to 10%, and then over time I got to 20%. I owned 20% of the company by the end of the deal. You know what, just go there, try to learn, do as best work as you can, and like let the chips fall where they may.
