[aardvark291]

> You should always ask, and they should always tell you.

I'm currently on the job search. One of my offers was quite forthright and included the total number of outstanding shares and the fraction I would receive. But this seems very unusual.

The others all treated this information as proprietary/confidential. They either provide an opaque "valuation" of the equity, or give the current strike price ("fair market value" according to 409a) and preferred price (implied valuation after most recent funding round), and strongly imply that the spread here implies that the options are already significantly in-the-money.

Sometimes they just give the number of of options and their strike price.

[ska]

I've only once had someone offer this without asking, but always been given it when requested, in some useful form. YMMV of course, but feeling the need to be coy about the cap table with potential hires (within reason, and assuming relatively young startup) would be a bit of a red flag for me.