# Marcus Thibodeau, Senior Staff Engineer at Fieldwise — read of Cliff (Equity Calculator), June 9 2026

> 11 years in tech, currently employee #47 at a 200-person Series B in Denver. Evaluating two job offers this week. Have been burned once before by equity that went to zero.

## How I got here

Got two offer letters in my inbox within 72 hours of each other last Tuesday. One is a Series A with a fat options package, one is Series B with RSUs. I've been here before and I'm not falling for the same "trust us, it's worth a lot" story again. I Googled "startup equity calculator dilution modeling" on my lunch break and Cliff showed up second or third result. Clicked it.

## What I clicked first

The hero headline landed: "Know What Your Equity Offer Is Actually Worth." That's the actual question I have. Not "understand your equity" or "make smarter decisions" (which every one of these says). This one said the quiet part out loud.

Also, the problem framing below the fold is solid. "Your boss says it's worth $500k. Your friend says you'll never see a dime. Who's right?" That's a verbatim replay of two conversations I had last Thursday. Points for that.

## Where I paused

The FAQ answer about accuracy: "The math is audited by a CPA." I stopped on that. That's a specific claim that almost nobody makes. Most of these tools are built by a developer who took one finance class and vibes the rest. A named CPA audit would make that sentence worth something. An unnamed one is still better than nothing, but I want to know who.

## What I distrusted

Two things, and they're both pretty significant.

First, the bottom section that says "57/100 Adoptability" and "1 in 6 meaningful-success odds" and "$-11,469 Year-1 take-home" alongside "Honest disclosure: we don't have live customers on this idea yet." That's... not a product page. That's a pitch deck for someone to build the product. So do I actually get a calculator if I click "Get Started Free," or am I looking at a landing page for a thing that doesn't exist yet? That's the core question I can't answer from this page.

Second, "1000+ exit scenarios generated automatically" is meaningless without an example. Show me what a scenario actually looks like. A screenshot, a sample output, anything. The word "scenarios" could mean a Monte Carlo with 1000 draws of a single model or it could mean 1000 labeled tabs. I don't know.

## What would convince me

Show me a sample output for a fictional company. Specifically one where the options end up worth less than the strike price after dilution, taxes, and a below-expectation exit. If the tool is honest, that outcome should exist in the demo. Every equity tool I've seen only shows rosy scenarios because nobody wants to show the user their offer is garbage. If Cliff shows me the garbage scenario with the same confidence it shows the lottery-winner scenario, I believe it.

Also, name the CPA. Or link to a methodology document. I'm about to make a decision worth potentially six figures of comp. "Audited by a CPA" with zero citation is doing less work than they think it is.

## What I'd ask in an email reply

1. The page says "everything runs in your browser" but then mentions "Priority support" as a Pro feature and "Historical tracking" as a Team feature. If nothing is stored, how does historical tracking work? Is that local storage? Walk me through that.

2. For the Series A vs RSU comparison I'm trying to run right now: the Series A is ISO options, the Series B is RSUs. Does the side-by-side comparison handle the fact that RSUs and ISOs have almost nothing in common in terms of tax treatment and risk profile, or does it just line up the dollar outputs?

3. Who built this and what's their background? Not asking to be rude. Asking because equity calculations done wrong are worse than not calculating at all. You can make a model that outputs confident numbers and is quietly off by 40%.

## Verdict: on-the-fence

The product idea is the right idea, the hero copy is sharper than average, and someone clearly thought about the actual user problem. But the bottom section revealing this is an unbuilt concept someone is selling a "dossier" for genuinely unsettled me, and I still don't know if there is a working calculator at that URL or not.

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*Memo by skeptic persona, generated 2026-06-09. Studio breaks own self-grading loop.*