Sorry, guys, I am going to have to disagree with both this article and the suggestion that counter-offers should be turned down by employees.

The truth is that despite the fact that lots of hn (yc) type startups have employees working for enough to cover their rent or whatever, and a bit of equity that has absolutely no defined value, when the company does take off, it's only fair to ask: All right, thanks for sticking by me, now what are you guys really worth! What is this killer graphics designer worth ; what is this DBA back-end coder worth who has just scaled us from a bedroom to millions of customers ; what is this accountant worth.

If they don't have other offers, there is NO answer to that question. You can't appeal to the cost of their bedroom or car, you can't appeal to the chance to build something great, none of this is external or fair.

Fair is what the market says.

I remember somewhere years ago on Slashdot that it's impossible to be "ripped off" in a transaction, reasoning thus: "When you have a fistful of cash in one hand, and the offered good or service in front of you (forget what the example was), and you say 'ok' and get it, that's your choice, if you get what you thought you would get giving the money that was asked, you physically can't be ripped off. The money was in your hand and it was your choice".

Well, sorry slashdot poster from years ago: that's false. When you have a fistful of money and buy something, but you are radically misinformed about the market price (to your disadvantage) then you just got ripped off. If you sell your vintage gold (whatever) for a couple of bucks, being told it's just for the value in gold, but a vintage gold (whatever) is worth 100x what you just paid: then you just got ripped off.

The thing about talent like this is there is no market price because everyone is unique. The market price is whatever other offers you get.

In the vintage gold whatever example, if someone says "This only has a tiny bit of gold in it, I can give you $100 for it", but in the same town five out of the five other specialists you would sell it to if this person wasn't in front of you offer at least $3,000 - then you just got ripped off.

I'm not talking about if you were to sell it yourself (instead of to a specailists) to another buyer: maybe buyers themselves pay $8,000. I'm talking about other opportunities in the exact same circumstances and market.

The fact is, "intrinsic" arguments (like how many ounces of gold is in something), what food and rent costs, what you paid the last guy, whatever, are worthless:

the ONLY thing that establishes the market price in my market of my graphics designer is their other offers (not their own other work, which is a different market).. The ONLY thing that establishes the market price of my back-end engineer is their other offers (again, not their consulting work, which is a different market).

I want to be fair with my employees, and I want to be treated fairly. I don't want to rip anyone off, nor do I want to be ripped off.

The ONLY way to do this is to explore market prices, and the best mechanism to do this is through other offers (since no one is fungible with other people in this industry; you can't just 'look it up').

So I'm going to have to strongly disagree on all points here.