ego, equity or exit? checklist to decide if a startup worth your career

My LinkedIn inbox fills up every month with startup pitches. A founder wants a “quick chat.” A recruiter says a Series B company is “on fire.” A stealth startup promises “impact at scale.” If you are a senior engineer in Big Tech, you know the script.

Most of these messages are noise. But buried in them, once in a while, is a company that could be worth a real look. The problem is, the pitch is never the truth. Founders sell vision. Recruiters sell urgency. If you make a career move based on either, you are gambling blind.

The only way to cut through is to run your own checklist. Over time, I’ve built mine. It is not complicated, but it is sharp enough to filter 90% of the inbound messages I get.

The first number I check is revenue per employee. Ask the founder, or whoever reached out to you, for the revenue number. Divide their annual recurring revenue by the total headcount. If that number is below $150K, the company is either pre–product market fit or scaling too early. They will burn fast when the market tightens. If it is above $300K, there is enough efficiency to suggest real traction. Most engineers never ask this, but it tells you in one shot if the business model makes sense.

Then I check fundraising history on Crunchbase. Do not only look at valuation headlines. Look at the timing. Healthy companies raise every 12–24 months and grow into each round. If you see a raise only six months after the last, it usually means burn is out of control. If you see a gap of three years with no news, it means they struggled to get the next check. Both are red flags.

Next is investors. Look at their financial stability. Check the size of the fund. A small fund may not have the capital to support future rounds. Do they fund follow-on rounds, or abandon companies after the first check?

Equity is the hardest to diligence, but you can still push. Ask from the founders about the preferred share price in the last round. A clear answer means they respect you. A vague answer usually means liquidation preferences are so high that your common equity will be nearly worthless. Many engineers only discover this after years of work, when their “life-changing” grant turns into nothing.

I also check the team. LinkedIn makes it obvious. How long do engineers stay? Are the first ten hires still there? If you see a pattern of people leaving at the two-year mark, it usually means insiders see the ceiling. Early churn is the most honest signal you will get.

One more check most engineers ignore: customers. Look at engagement and retention. For B2B, ask how many top accounts renew, losing one big client can wipe out a large portion of revenue. For B2C, check usage and repeat behavior, high churn or low engagement signals trouble. Impressive logos or large user counts mean little if the business can’t retain them. Customers tell the truth long before TechCrunch does.

When you step back, the decision always comes down to three currencies: equity, ego, or exit. Equity is the bet that your shares will be worth something. Ego is the pull of being needed, building fast, feeling essential again. Exit is the freedom you hope to buy later. None of these is wrong. But you have to know which one you are choosing, or you will get burned.

I have seen smart engineers chase ego and call it equity. I have seen people join for equity only to discover they were last in line on the cap table. The failure is not choosing wrong, but not being honest about what you want or checking if the company can deliver it.

Every message in your inbox is asking for the same thing: your time, traded for risk. Your job is to make sure the numbers make the risk worth it. Revenue per employee. Fundraising pace. The investor behind the logo. The equity terms. The team’s behavior. The customers. That is the real checklist.

If those do not pass, nothing else matters.

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Until next time,
Adlet

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