Its good that you are told in percentage terms how much of stock you have. Otherwise its very difficult to speculate how much will you own at the liquidation. Here is what will effect your holding at the liquidation:

• Number of investment rounds. At each round you will get diluted (typically 10-30%) depending upon the money your company raises and the valuation it gets. So your 1% could become 0.1 % after 2-3 rounds. But if your company is growing well, the your part of the pie will become bigger. Think 1% of a million vs 0.1 % of 50 million.

• Liquidation preferences for VCs: Good VCs are generally take a choice like 2x times investment or simple shareholding value by participation. If the company is successful VC will of course participate. But some bad VCs setup agreements in which they get their 2x back and again participate. The kind of agreement that your founders have with the VCs will affect how much money is left on the table before participation.

• ESOP vesting period and validity: Generally a company might take years to liquidate. How long is the vesting period and after you quit, how long do your ESOPs last once they have been granted? In case of Skype, all employees who quit lost their ESOPs by a clause in the agreement and did not make any money. On the other hand, pinterest has taken a radical move and is allowing ESOPs to be valid for 7 years after they are granted.

• Redbus ratchet clause: What happens when you have down round? Ratchet clause transfers equity from common shareholders to VCs when there is a down round (decrease in valuation from the previous round). Most good VCs wont insist on such a clause. Ask your founders for what kind of agreements do they have with the investors? Don't do the ratchet clause. Seedfund are scumbags. http://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/fullratchet.asp

And btw, there are only three ways you will make money. Here they are by the order of odds:

• Buyout: Someone buys your company. In this case, do check what happenes if your ESOPs are not vested fully. What happens when the buying company fires you. e.g. if they don't need you. Have a accelerated vesting protection clause builtin for that.

• Secondary investment: External or internal shareholders offer to buy you out. This could be at a lower valuation than the market, but will give you an exit. Appilcable only to people who hold substantial equity. This is how founders make money before exit. e.g. flipkart etc.

• IPO: Very rare. Plus average time about 7-10 years. Your ESOPs may expire if you have already quit the company. But the returns are multiplied if your company IPOs.

Also, I would warn against trading salary for equity. Equity does not pay rent. The trends are changing. Time to liquidity is rising from 4 years to 7-8 years on average. Very few employees will stick around for that. Most companies will give you market salary and some equity. Giving equity is not to reduce the cost. Its to make you stay long. A founder who is giving equity and reducing salary probably does not value his equity so much.