what to do ????????????

[Jay_Gatsby]

so turns out #2 offer is not effective yet and is contingent upon their successful completion of certain things by end of Mar.(failure is very unlikely according to them.) The offer also comes with 80k shares of employee stock options vested over 4 yrs(1/4 for each yr), company is privately held so I don't know how much they're worth. Is there a way to find out? Start date with them should be around mid Apr.

I talked this over with a friend of mine and here's what I did:
Took both offers.

I will start work with #1 beginning in Apr, try it out for a week or so and if #2 comes thru and I don't like #1 then switch to #2. For #1, I'm just a temp. employee for the agency during the first 6 month, so I shouldn't feel so much guilt there.

any thoughts ?

Not a bad plan. The 6-month period will give you a time to get to know job #1 enough to decide whether or not to stay. It will also give job #2 a chance to get its act together and prove that it's a viable choice (the delay in being effective is a red flag). If it is a viable choice, having job #1 in hand gives you negotiating leverage for more stock options, vacation, etc.... Worst case scenario is that job #2 never turns out to be viable or you find job #1 is more to your liking.

 

[Amethyst]

I think I'd take job 1 and stay with job 1.

+1. "Failure is very unlikely, according to them"...if you don't believe us, just ask us...

No wonder they act cute and cuddly!

Amethyst