Ask a CFO what they spent on cloud last quarter and you’ll get a number to the dollar. Ask what they spent in equity and you’ll get a range, a shrug, or “let me check with comp.” That gap is getting expensive. Investors are watching dilution, proxy advisors are watching burn rate, and the equity pool is quietly covering for cash the business didn’t have. This keynote treats equity as a second budget, with its own owner, its own ceiling and its own review cycle. It covers how to set a burn-rate target you can defend, where to place the dilution limit, and what to say to a hiring manager when the equity simply isn’t there. Key takeaways: - How to set and enforce a burn-rate target and dilution ceiling - Who should own the equity budget, and how to hold them to it - The signs that SBC has stopped working as a retention tool