How can I have an idea of the dilution of employee stock options for a company that is going through different rounds of funding?
For example, a company that has received a total of $100M funding up until now gives stock options at the moment of signing a new employee, always for the same valuation amount. Let's suppose they give $1000 worth in stock options at the moment of signing over 3 years in batches of 6 months. Let's suppose that after a while, they go through another round of funding of another $50M and they sign new employees and give them the same $1000 worth of stock options, but now a different amount, given that the company has received more funding since last time around, and the pre-IPO valuation by the same company may have changed.
How can one calculate the ratio of dilution vs valuation between these two rounds in the stock options?
Valuation Stock Options Dilution
Here's a simpler way to think about it: you have an option pool, that is a small fraction of the total number of shares in the company. Say, 10%, which could be 100,000 shares. With those 100K shares, you need to offer options to your next 100+ employees. You do the math. As time progresses, employee number 500 is less critical than employee number 10. It's very common for employee #10 to get 10,000 stock-options, when employee #500, for the same skillset, will only get 1,000 shares (10 times less).
Think of your stock-options like a budget: you have some amount of stock, and you need to use it to pay future employees. Watch your allocation carefully.