Something to readCompensation
The Two Types of Job Offers
A short essay on what a company's way of negotiating tells you about it
Why it’s worth your time
Andy Rachleff and Avery Moon's short Wealthfront essay argues that how a company makes you an offer hints at how it will treat you once you're inside. Some companies start low and wait to see whether you push; others make one offer they consider fair and hold to it. It's worth the few minutes before you answer any offer with equity in it.
Reading a startup job offer
The essay · 4 min · Free
How to get it
Opens their site. We don’t copy it here; we’d rather they get the read.
- Read the essay.
It takes about four minutes. Give most of your attention to the signs of a low offer, especially the questions a company won't answer clearly. The last section turns to Wealthfront's own approach.
- Ask how the offer was put together.
Before you accept or counter, reply in writing and ask how the numbers were set and what share of the company the grant works out to. Notice whether the answer comes back specific or vague, and whether it comes with a push for your number. Keep the reply with the offer letter.
You“I'm glad to have this offer. Before I respond, could you tell me how you arrived at the salary and the equity? It would also help to know roughly what percentage of the company the grant represents, counting the option pool and any other shares that could be issued.”
Good moments for this: before you answer an offerwhen an offer includes stock optionswhen a recruiter asks for your counter right away
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Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
What a company considers fair for the role, in Rachleff and Moon's sense, comes from its own read of the market and may not match what you need, especially in an expensive city or with loans to repay. The company's answer tells you how it set the number, not whether the number works for you.
What might make this harder
Rachleff and Moon favor weighing one company at a time, which can sit awkwardly here. Before the second offer arrives, decide privately which company you'd pick if the numbers came out equal, so the second offer informs your choice instead of making it.
Questions people ask
What are the two types of job offers in the Wealthfront essay?
Andy Rachleff and Avery Moon describe companies that open low and expect you to negotiate, and companies that make one offer they believe is fair and rarely move from it. Writing in 2014 from Wealthfront, they argue each style tells you something about how the company runs.
How can you tell if a startup offer is a lowball?
The essay's warning signs are reluctance to say what percentage of the company your grant represents or how many shares are outstanding, no clear answer on whether that count covers the option pool and every other share that might be created, and a quick push for your counteroffer.
Is it worth negotiating an offer the company calls final?
Rachleff and Moon suggest not walking away just because a company won't negotiate, since in their view those companies tend to grant more stock over time. Haseeb Qureshi, writing separately on negotiating, argues for always negotiating. Asking how the number was set is one way to learn more without pushing.
Is this essay still relevant?
The core questions are. Some details date it: it names Dropbox and Airbnb as hot private companies, and both have since gone public. It's written about startup equity, mostly in US terms.
What it says, and how it holds up
An offer with no room to move can sting, especially early in a career. Rachleff and Moon treat the way a company negotiates as evidence about the company. In their telling, one kind of company opens below what it would pay, waits to see whether you push, and tends to stay vague about the facts you'd need to judge the equity. The other works out what it considers fair for the role, makes that offer, and rarely moves. Fair, they add, doesn't mean the market average: a company with better odds of success may offer a smaller grant and still be the better bet once risk is counted.
It's an argument with a point of view. Rachleff, a venture investor who co-founded Benchmark, is Wealthfront's executive chairman, and the essay's last section turns to Wealthfront's own practice of fair offers and of sharing its financials with employees. So it's partly a case for the kind of employer Wealthfront says it is. It also argues for weighing one company at a time rather than collecting offers to play against each other, and for paying attention to whether a company is open with you, since in their view that habit carries on after you join.
Haseeb Qureshi, who saw hundreds of offers negotiated while he was an instructor at App Academy, a coding school, sees negotiation differently: he argues for always negotiating, and says the number and strength of the offers you hold drive the final result. The two views may fit different moments more than they cancel out. Rachleff and Moon's case rests on a company that explains its numbers openly; Qureshi's rests on the leverage that other offers give you. Real hiring is also messier than two types, and a single company can show a bit of each.
The essay is about startup equity, and its share-count questions do most of their work at private companies. If your offer is from a large public company whose stock already trades, the grant's dollar value and vesting schedule may tell you more, and if the offer has no equity at all, a guide to pay ranges for your role and city is likely to help more than this piece. The conventions it describes are mostly those of US startups. This explains how things usually work; it isn't financial, tax or legal advice for your situation.
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Picked by Truest and described in our own words. The original belongs to its creator. Last updated October 9, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.