By: Tara McMullen-King, Director, Research and Consulting

A few years ago, I wrote about why compensation matters in prospect research and why salary data should be treated as one piece of the puzzle – not the whole answer. Compensation estimates can be incredibly useful, but only when paired with context, judgment, and an understanding of what the numbers actually represent.

Since then, I’ve continued maintaining HBG’s Salary & Compensation Resources page and incorporating compensation estimates in my own work. And over time, one thing has become increasingly clear to me:

Compensation still matters… but researching and interpreting compensation is becoming more complex.

For many prospect researchers, compensation research has traditionally centered around relatively familiar industries and career paths where compensation tends to be more transparent and easier to benchmark.

Increasingly, though, that is not always where the most interesting wealth creation is happening.

Some of today’s most economically dynamic industries reward people through ownership, equity, performance incentives, liquidity events, and compensation structures that are not always visible through traditional salary and compensation sources. Some prospects are accumulating significant wealth earlier in life than researchers may historically expect. Others appear relatively ordinary on paper while quietly building substantial value behind the scenes.

If anything, this makes compensation research more important than ever. But it also means researchers need to move beyond simply asking what someone earns and start asking how compensation works – and how value is created – within an industry.

With that in mind, here are three areas where I think prospect researchers should be expanding their understanding of compensation – and looking beyond salary to better understand how wealth is being created today.

Venture-Backed Technology

Across venture-backed technology sectors – which can include artificial intelligence, software, cybersecurity, biotechnology, climate technology, enterprise infrastructure, and other venture-backed private companies – compensation increasingly extends beyond salary into ownership and incentive structures.

Someone working in these industries may receive salary and bonus… but they may also receive stock grants, options, retention awards, founder equity, equity refresh grants, profit-sharing arrangements, or long-term incentive packages. In some cases, individuals may also hold advisory roles, consulting agreements, or board positions or angel investing activity that create additional financial upside outside their primary employment.

If the company grows significantly, raises additional funding, goes public, or is acquired, that ownership can become dramatically more valuable than annual salary. And that distinction matters.

A 35-year-old earning $400,000 per year certainly deserves attention… but a 35-year-old earning $400,000 plus meaningful equity in a rapidly growing company may represent an entirely different financial picture.

For researchers evaluating compensation in the venture-backed technology space, it may be helpful to pause and ask additional questions:

• Is compensation primarily cash, or does ownership appear to be involved?
• What stage is the company in (seed, early-stage, growth-stage, late-stage private, public)?
• Did the prospect join the company early?
• Has the company recently raised capital or announced a valuation increase?
• Has there been an acquisition, tender offer, or liquidity event?
• Does the prospect appear to hold leadership, technical leadership, or business-critical responsibilities?
• Does the prospect appear to have a pattern of startup participation (repeat founder, advisor, angel investor)?

Compensation tells us where someone is today… but ownership often helps explain where wealth may emerge tomorrow.

Of course, this raises a practical question for researchers: How do I find equity-related information if the company is private?

The short answer is that most of the time, you will not be able to calculate it precisely… and that is okay. The goal is rarely precision – the goal is to have a better understanding of whether ownership likely changes the prospect’s financial picture. So, for private companies, you want to look for other signals.

Instead of asking “How much equity do they have?” try asking: “What evidence exists that ownership was likely part of the compensation package?”

Useful places to investigate may include:

• Funding announcements – especially funding rounds, investor disclosures, and articles describing employee growth or executive hiring around the time capital was raised
• Company press releases – leadership appointments sometimes reveal founder status, early hires, or strategic roles associated with equity participation
• Executive and leadership biographies – look for words like founding team, co-founder, early employee, partner, principal, or employee #X
• LinkedIn tenure and career timing – understanding when someone joined can be one of the strongest clues to potential equity participation
• Acquisition announcements – sometimes leadership payouts, retention packages, or founder outcomes are discussed publicly
• Venture capital databases – useful for understanding company stage, valuation, funding history, and timing of growth
• Company websites and archived leadership pages – compare leadership teams over time to determine whether someone joined early or later
• Interviews, podcasts, and founder profiles – executives sometimes talk quite openly about growth, ownership, incentives, or exits
• Board memberships and advisory positions – board seats may indicate equity participation or governance rights
• State business registrations and business filings – can be useful for identifying founders, officers, managers, or affiliated entities
• Employee and recruiting language – job postings sometimes disclose equity, stock options, or incentive structures

One additional trick: pay attention to dates. Someone who joined a venture-backed startup as employee #4 may be a very different prospect from someone who joined after several rounds of funding or during a later stage of growth. Likewise, someone hired immediately after a major funding round may have received a very different compensation package than someone who joined three years later.

You may never know whether someone owns 0.5% or 5% of the business. But recognizing that ownership likely exists – and understanding approximately when it may have been granted and under what circumstances – can fundamentally change your assessment of the prospect.

Private Credit and Alternative Investments

Asset management has always created wealth – but private markets often require researchers to think differently about compensation. In these environments, title and salary alone do not always reflect how value is created or accumulated.

Compensation in these sectors can be difficult to interpret because annual salary is often only one component of total economics, which may also include deferred compensation, co-investment opportunities, and carried interest.

One lesson I’ve learned repeatedly while estimating compensation is that titles can be misleading! A vice president at one firm may have accumulated substantial ownership, while a managing director elsewhere may have very little – this means two individuals with similar titles may have dramatically different financial pictures.

So prospect researchers may benefit from stepping back and asking…

Questions about the individual:

• Is this prospect an owner, partner, or employee?
• Are there signs of participation in funds or ownership structures?
• Is compensation primarily recurring, or tied to investment outcomes?
• Is there evidence of carried interest or co-investment participation?
• Does the prospect appear on leadership materials?
• Has the prospect remained at the firm long enough to accumulate economics?
• Does the prospect serve on portfolio company boards?

Questions about the firm:

• Is the firm independently owned or part of a larger institution?
• Does the firm disclose AUM (assets under management)?
• Has the firm recently launched new funds or expanded significantly?
• Does the firm appear to have experienced recent liquidity or growth events?

Places to investigate:

• Form ADV filings (especially ownership, business descriptions, and employee counts)
• Executive and leadership biographies
• Portfolio company websites and board listings
• Conference speaking and industry panels
• Media interviews
• Firm websites and press releases
• Fund announcements and fundraising activity

The Creator Economy and Independent Expertise

There are also a growing number of prospects whose careers and income streams do not fit neatly into traditional compensation frameworks.

For years, compensation research has relied heavily on employment-based models. We estimate salaries, benchmark titles, compare industries, and use public disclosures where available. But what happens when someone’s wealth is not tied to employment in the traditional sense?

Increasingly, prospect researchers are encountering prospects whose income is built around expertise, intellectual property, audience, or business ownership rather than a conventional employer-employee relationship. That might include consultants, creators, educators, authors, coaches, speakers, independent operators, software builders, newsletter publishers, content creators, or people running profitable niche businesses.

These individuals can be particularly challenging to research because compensation databases may dramatically understate their financial reality. Someone may appear to have relatively modest reported income while simultaneously generating substantial value through business ownership, retained earnings, licensing agreements, intellectual property, digital products, subscriptions, distributions, or private entities.

When evaluating prospects in these categories, researchers may need to broaden the lens and ask different questions. Instead of asking “What is this person’s compensation?” ask instead: “What assets, businesses, audiences, or activities are generating this person’s income?”

Look for:

• LLC ownership and business entities
• Trademarks and intellectual property registrations
• Speaking engagements
• Publishing and book deals
• Courses and educational offerings
• Membership communities or subscription businesses
• Licensing arrangements
• Monetized expertise (consulting, advisory work, coaching)
• Digital products and recurring revenue models
• Business partnerships or affiliated ventures
• Podcast, newsletter, or audience monetization
• Sponsorships and brand partnerships

One additional trick: pay attention to consistency. One speaking engagement or one published article may not mean much… but repeated activity across multiple channels – courses, speaking, publishing, business entities, and audience-building – can sometimes suggest a more meaningful economic engine behind the scenes.

Researchers may never arrive at a precise compensation estimate in these cases, but understanding how value is being created can often tell us even more.

Compensation Still Matters… But the Question Has Evolved

After spending years researching compensation and evaluating resources, I still believe compensation remains one of the most useful pieces of data available to us. But I increasingly think many researchers sometimes stop one question too early.

Historically, the question has often been: What does this person make?

That question still has real value. Compensation estimates help establish context, benchmark career progression, understand earning power, and provide a useful starting point for assessing capacity. But compensation alone rarely tells the full story anymore.

An equally important question today may be: How does someone in this industry create, retain, and accumulate value?

That shift changes how we interpret almost everything we uncover. Instead of focusing on salary, we begin paying attention to ownership, equity, liquidity, incentives, business economics, and the broader mechanisms that drive wealth creation.

One final reminder: researchers do not need perfect numbers to produce useful intelligence.

Compensation estimation has always involved uncertainty. Our job is not to calculate someone’s income to the dollar – it is to gather meaningful signals, understand context, communicate uncertainty appropriately, and build the clearest picture we can from imperfect information.

Compensation remains important – but increasingly, understanding financial capacity means looking well beyond the paycheck.