{"id":295587,"date":"2026-06-11T12:57:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:57:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/?p=295587"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:57:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T19:57:35","slug":"private-company-compensation-data-public-vs-private","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/?p=295587","title":{"rendered":"Why Mixing Private &amp; Public Compensation Data Doesn&#8217;t Cut It"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One time is random. Twice is a pattern.<br><br>I got off the phone with a biotech VC today who was genuinely trying to understand why Thelander doesn&#8217;t mix public and private company compensation data together for the private company <a href=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/private-company-compensation-data-j-thelander-consulting\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dataset<\/a>. This question has come up enough that we&#8217;re putting our answer on the record.<br><br>1. Public and private companies have fundamentally different compensation levers.<br>Private companies have a unique compensation lever that isn&#8217;t available to public companies: equity.<br><br>2. Private company total cash and equity compensation varies by financing stage.<br>How much capital a company has raised matters, especially when it comes to getting the mix of cash and equity right. Even series is tricky because rounds are varying widely.<br><br>3. &#8220;Aren&#8217;t your numbers lower?&#8221; Our numbers aren&#8217;t lower because we exclude public companies. They&#8217;re more accurate.<br>Thelander only surveys private companies,\u00a0so it&#8217;s an apples to apples comparison. Private company comp looks different from public company comp because of the equity. That&#8217;s the point.<br><br>If you&#8217;ve ever wondered the same thing, this is your answer. Interested in learning more or seeing the Thelander platform for yourself? Schedule a free demo <a href=\"https:\/\/jthelander.com\/request-free-demo\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&#8217;t mix public and private company compensation data together for the private company dataset. This question has come up enough that we&#8217;re putting our answer on the record. 1. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4,8],"class_list":["post-295587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-private-company","tag-subscriptions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295587","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=295587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brightturn.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}