[MalcolmDiggs]

"It's my understanding that the number of shares are a worthless number without knowing how many shares have been issued in total. Is this correct?"

Yes, this is correct.

"Is it reasonable to expect the company to give me access to the full cap table?"

No.

But, it IS reasonable for your contract to state what percentage of the fully-diluted capitalization of the company your stock options are granting you the right to purchase (at the time of the writing, or at a predetermined time in the future, like at the end of an round).

All that being said: All early employees are going to get diluted eventually (in most cases), and nobody has any way to predict how much dilution you're going to experience over time.

So, while it may make you feel better to know exactly what your options would be worth today, it's kind of irrelevant to what they'll be worth once you pass your vesting cliff.

The best protection, in that regard, is to only work with people you trust. If you're worried about being screwed-over by these people, and you haven't even started working there yet, that might be a bad sign.