{"id":292350,"date":"2026-03-26T11:18:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:18:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/?p=292350"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:18:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T18:18:23","slug":"founder-shares-compensation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/?p=292350","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s the Difference Between Founder Shares and Founder Shares for Current Job at a Startup?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One of our most frequently asked questions is about founder shares \u2014 specifically, what&#8217;s the difference between founder shares and equity granted for current job?<br>In this week&#8217;s PC Data Drop, we&#8217;re giving you the answer using a real-time CEO data table pulled directly from the <a href=\"http:\/\/jthelander.com\">Thelander<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/platform.jthelander.com\">platform<\/a> \u2014 filtered for companies with $50M\u2013$89.9M in total financing.<br><br>\u2014 % Fully Diluted Share Non-Founder:\u00a0The percent of fully diluted shares granted to a non-founder CEO as part of their total compensation package. The median here is\u00a05.0%.<br>\u2014 % Fully Diluted Shares Founder:\u00a0Percent of fully diluted shares awarded for being a founder.\u00a0The median is\u00a06.0%.<br>\u2014 % of Fully Diluted Shares Founder for Current Job:\u00a0This is the one that trips people up. This is equity granted\u00a0separately\u00a0to a founder who also holds an executive position \u2014 compensation for the\u00a0job they&#8217;re doing, not for having started the company. The median here is\u00a04.0%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Screen-Shot-2026-03-26-at-1.00.12-PM-700x382.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-292351\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Why does this matter?<\/strong>\u00a0When you&#8217;re benchmarking a founder-CEO&#8217;s equity, you want to separate what they earned at the founding table from what they&#8217;re receiving as an executive. This metric is the apples-to-apples comparison to non-founder executive equity. It answers the question:\u00a0is this founder being compensated fairly in their executive role, independent of their founding stake?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Want to see how your own mix of cash and equity stacks up to market?\u00a0Regardless of your role or title, participate in the\u00a0Thelander Private Company Compensation Survey\u00a0today and you&#8217;ll get access to real-time compensation data tables \u2014 just like this one \u2014 at no cost for every job title you fill out<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"http:\/\/survey.jthelander.com\">Click Here to Complete The Survey Today<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of our most frequently asked questions is about founder shares \u2014 specifically, what&#8217;s the difference between founder shares and equity granted for current job?In this week&#8217;s PC Data Drop, we&#8217;re giving you the answer using a real-time CEO data table pulled directly from the Thelander platform \u2014 filtered for companies with $50M\u2013$89.9M in total [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-292350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-data-drops","tag-private-company"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=292350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=292350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=292350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=292350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}