I used to think that it's much harder to find a manager job than a dev job. Eventually I learned that this is not the case - quite the opposite. There is obviously lack of good managers. After reading "Peoplewhare" I understood why. There are two main manager objectives: 1) Advance the project 2) Advance the people. I can't even imagine how one finds a symbiosis between people's ambitions and project needs. Someone has to get hurt.
What always surprises me is the fear about a company having tools to track you. Yes, there are tools, and yes you can be tracked at your workplace. The bigger question is whether your employer really uses this data to judge your contributions, or there are effective review processes where your work can be evaluated rightfully.
GDPR is coming really soon, but it's still unclear how "Big Data companies" prepare to it from technical perspective. In addition to "getting consent" requirement there are "the right to be forgotten" and "the right of access", and it's not obvious how implementing these two are feasible or, at least, cost effective.
10 REM drawing a galaxy
20 FOR r=1 to 50
30 CIRCLE 150, 100, r
40 NEXT r
50 ...
10 REM playing a song
20 BEEP 1,0: BEEP 1,2: BEEP .5,3: BEEP.5,2: BEEP 1,0
30 ...
Showing ads according to a search term is totally possible, but having no attribution attached to a "click" or to an "impression" give very little advantage for the marketer who is paying for the ads. There are cost models allowing to pay for the actual action (like installing an advertised application) not just for clicks or views. Re-targeting people who had expressed their interest in a product is a useful tool for marketers as well. Having some kind of link back to the advertising campaign, which your users came from along with their LTV allow you to measure campaign productivity, which helps optimize future campaigns. And much more.
I really like the idea of not being tracked on the Internet, but it's seems like currently it's not feasible to remove a tool many marketers get used to.
> If the valuation you say is accurate, it looks like they are giving you options for around 0.026% of the company
Don't forget about dilution - outstanding shares is only a portion of currently issued shares. With 3 dilutions or more this percentage is going to be much smaller.