Treat it as real only when it is liquid. A paper value is the latest round or 409A price times your vested shares, minus the strike you have to pay and the tax you will owe. It is a genuine possibility, not a balance. Private shares can stay illiquid for years, valuations can fall, and a bad exit can leave common stock worth nothing. Plan your actual life on the salary you take home, and treat the equity as a concentrated bet that might pay off. That concentration is exactly why de-risking some of it later, once you can, matters.
3 resources, 1 India-specific, 2 link-checked.
The clearest short piece on how to think about giving up and holding equity, and why a smaller slice of a bigger outcome is the whole game.
From paulgraham.com by Paul Graham
Open paulgraham.com →A plain-language India primer on what an ESOP actually is, how vesting and exercise work, and how it is taxed.
From ClearTax by ClearTax
Open cleartax.in →A working glossary of the words on your cap table, from the company that stores most of them, so the jargon stops getting in the way.
From Carta by Carta
Open carta.com →The same ground, over in Raise money, our Starting Up track.
