> So essentially you have a linear limit to the one part that is promised to be potentially exponential?
It's not a linear limit - it's a fixed (constant) cap, but yes.
This doesn't mean you can't receive more than $100,000 in options, but it does mean you'll be taxed on those as NSOs, which is much higher.
Also, note that because of the cliff, you receive your full first year on a single day, which means that your second year's worth of options are much more likely to exceed the ISO cap and auto-convert to NSOs.
Just keep in mind it’s the value when you join that matters, not how that value grows over time. If you’re not over the cap in your initial grant, you won’t be surprised later (the one exception being refresh grants — which are rare in early stage companies).
It's not a linear limit - it's a fixed (constant) cap, but yes.
This doesn't mean you can't receive more than $100,000 in options, but it does mean you'll be taxed on those as NSOs, which is much higher.
Also, note that because of the cliff, you receive your full first year on a single day, which means that your second year's worth of options are much more likely to exceed the ISO cap and auto-convert to NSOs.