The reserved bucket of company shares set aside for future employee equity grants. Plain-language explainer with examples. Free to read.
The reserved bucket of company shares set aside for future employee equity grants.
Option pools are usually sized 10–20% of fully-diluted equity. Investors almost always require the pool to be topped up pre-money at a priced round — which dilutes founders and existing shareholders, not new investors.
Negotiate pool size against your actual hiring plan for the next 18–24 months. Blindly accepting a 20% pre-money pool costs founders real ownership.
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