In the end, the most impactful thing Josh did was a line in a two-paragraph email that essentially said, “Instead of $211k per year, I want $250k.” That doesn’t seem like I paid for much!

However, there’s a lot of things that went into that email. Where do we want to pressure them? Which dimensions do we want to go on? It was knowing the correct things to ask for (cash or equity), knowing the correct amount to ask for, and knowing how to come up with a narrative around why they should try to reach my number. That email wasn’t just a number, it was a story.

I’ve set myself up for compounding increases in incoming cash by starting my Google salary and equity higher than I would have otherwise. I feel like I got the best deal that was available to me and I didn’t leave anything on the table. If I hadn’t hired Josh, I probably would be sitting here today still wondering, “Man, could I have easily bumped this by a bunch of more money?”