My own experience: I sold my company few years ago and I was talking to two companies at that time. One made a verbal offer of 1 mil, all in stock, vested over 4 years (similar to yours) subject to employment. Another company had a 5 mil offer, which was OK'd by their board. Cash deal, but they wanted to stagger payments to something like 10 years. To that I said "no, not interested" (which was true) and basically went on with my life. They came back in a bit and offered a 3 year period in equal parts plus generous stock supplement vested over the same 3 year period. And after the deal was done I was chatting to their finance guy and he said that it did not matter to the company if to pay in cash or in stock, because they simply sold stock to their current investors to raise needed cash.
In other words and without knowing specifics of your situation, I would probably say "thank you, but no, not good enough" without getting into the negotiations. If they are interested enough, they will be back. And if they are not, then your concerns of being fired on a second day may be not that unfounded.
In other words and without knowing specifics of your situation, I would probably say "thank you, but no, not good enough" without getting into the negotiations. If they are interested enough, they will be back. And if they are not, then your concerns of being fired on a second day may be not that unfounded.