The size matters for your first offer

Your initial offer is vitally important to your financial well-being. It is the initial stock grant that will vest and that will form the basis for the percentage raise

- Jeffrey Pfeffer & M Muneer

A former student of Stanford Graduate School of Business who held a senior position in Uber overseas is now back in San Francisco Bay Area. When we asked him why he left the unicorn, he replied that he wanted to return to the U.S. and that there was little financial incentive to stay at Uber abroad.

He had been in this position for four long years. His options, as is standard, had a four-year vesting schedule, so he was completely vested. When we asked him about refresh options, he said that Uber, like all companies public and private, had a refresh program but it was quite minimal. Then he noted that salary raises were typically presented in percentage terms, and there were limits as to how large a percentage increase anyone could get in a single year.