Biotech CEO Compensation: The Real Inflection Point
The real inflection point in biotech CEO compensation isn’t between early and late clinical trials. It’s the leap from pre-clinical to clinical. In this data drop, pulled directly from the Thelander Platform, we looked at how median total cash, founder and non-founder equity changes across biotech stages of development. Pre-Clinical → ClinicalMedian total cash: $329,067 […]
How Private Company Fundraising Has Changed in 5 Charts
Fundraising rounds at private companies are getting larger at every stage. In this month’s digest, we are digging into the correlation between the most recent series raised and the total amount of financing raised (as a dollar amount) to see how the market has shifted since 2024. That shift has meaningful implications for how companies […]
Operations Managers Pay is Up 31% – Here’s Why
As venture rounds get bigger and the sub-$5M round disappears (PitchBook), it’s changed the way that companies recruit and retain talent – and the YoY compensation data is changing as a result. Take Operations Managers at companies that have raised less than $15 Million. Median total cash compensation has increased from $87,500 in 2022 to […]
Why Mixing Private & Public Compensation Data Doesn’t Cut It
One time is random. Twice is a pattern. I got off the phone with a biotech VC today who was genuinely trying to understand why Thelander doesn’t mix public and private company compensation data together for the private company dataset. This question has come up enough that we’re putting our answer on the record. 1. […]
Private company M&A activity is up. Is your company prepared? Find out in 2 charts.
Global M&A hit a historic milestone in Q1 2026. According to PitchBook, “total deal value reaching an estimated $1.6 trillion—a new quarterly record—up 50.6% YoY despite a backdrop of trade policy uncertainty, geopolitical tension, and AI-driven disruption risk.” North America led the way, and “liquidity remains abundant with buyers and sellers finding terms.” With M&A […]
The State of Compensation for US Private Biotech Companies
According to PitchBook, “Biopharma companies’ willingness to go public appears to be making a tentative reversal after a long drought…The real drive behind this resurgence, according to investors, is the M&A market.” We looked at our YoY biotech compensation data and used a preview of data from our upcoming US Private Biotech Compensation Report to see […]
Startup Tech Compensation Trends: IT Manager Pay Has Nearly Doubled. Software Engineer Pay Hasn’t.
Last week, Katherine Bindley from The Wall Street Journal published an article on “The Tech Jobs That Are Safe From AI.” She reported that senior IT and computer science job postings are up YoY – while entry level postings are down – which motivated us to look whether the same was true for compensation at […]
Pay Transparency Is Exposing a Bigger Problem: Private Companies Can’t Explain Why They Pay What They Pay
In a Fortune article published this week on the pay gap and pay transparency, the takeaway wasn’t that companies aren’t sharing pay — it’s that they can’t explain it. Private companies with fewer than 200 employees need a salary structure with total cash and equity ranges. And sure, having a job architecture and salary structure […]
The Founder’s Guide to Talent, Capital & Compensation
A strong startup compensation strategy isn’t just a financing exercise — it’s how founders attract the leaders who turn science into value. In this webinar, J. Thelander Consulting founder and CEO Jody Thelander was joined by Chris Garabedian, Joanna & Ellen of JM Search, who co-lead the firm’s biopharma practice, to discuss how founders, boards, […]
The AI Equity Premium: What the Data Shows Across Private Tech and Life Science Companies
In Carta‘s State of Startup Compensation Report, they said that “the dominance of AI is shaping how founders build and compensate their teams.” AI equity compensation is rising — but is it rising equally across every industry? In Michael Bodley‘s article digging into the report, he noted that initial equity grants for individual contributors on […]