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Alice: What (how much) are you guys getting?
Bob: Three points each.

Does "three points" mean three thousand/grand in this context? If yes then I assume it would be per month.

update 1: I heard this in the TV show named "Silicon Valley", in which the dudes use lots of informal/slang words/expressions.

update 2: They are also talking about the amount of equity they each get in their start-up company.

Episode transcript

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  • 3
    I still think it needs more context other than "a Silicon Valley show." For example, my school's faculty union pays extra money to salaried people for extracurricular activities they supervise, and this money is expressed in "points," where a point is a certain percentage of your salary. A "point" could really mean anything in your example without more information about the jargon.
    – Katherine Lockwood
    Dec 19 '16 at 1:42
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    I think you are both right. They are talking about both salary and equity, and I guess the guy is referring to amount of his equity when saying "three points each". Then I guess that means they will own three percents of the company?
    – Aliweb
    Dec 19 '16 at 1:45
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    @Aliweb It is very common to drop percentage before point(s) in business context. If the guys are employees other than Richard Hendricks or other CEOs, it should be 3.0%.
    – user140086
    Dec 19 '16 at 3:39
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    @Aliweb And, by the way, you can say "three percentage points" or "three percent", but not "three percents".
    – Scott
    Dec 19 '16 at 5:03
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    I’m voting to close this question because it refers to language peculiar to the production rather than standard everyday English. Better asked on a site devoted to shows.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Oct 16 at 15:54
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According to the transcript I added to the question and the season summary on Wikipedia it's pretty safe to assume that they are talking about company equity shares.

The following likely spoilers season two of the show. (I haven't seen it, so I can't judge too precisely.)

Bream gives Richard the highest offer of all the VC firms: 20% equity at a $100 million valuation. Monica privately visits Richard to urge them to decline the offer, calling it a "runaway valuation that they could never live up to", which would result in diluting Series A investors in future financing rounds. Richard offers Bream the same 20% equity but at a $50 million valuation.

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The three points mentioned here are from Season 3 Episode 4 (The Lady) of Silicon Valley where Gilfoyle, Dinesh, and Carla are engaged in a conversation. The usage is

Hey, Carla,
How much money do you make here?

Uh, Let's just say
it's a big jump from my old job.

Right, but you probably
got more equity there.

Um, no, actually I get more equity here.

What?

Yeah. Why, what are you guys getting?

Three points each.

Three? That's weird.
I thought you got in at the beginning.

It is safe to assume that Gilfoyle and Dinesh mean 3% equity each which seems reasonable for early-stage tech employees both of whom are members of the founding team of Pied Piper.

The equity breakdown was most likely to be:

Richard Hendricks - 36%
Russ Hanneman - 10%
Erlich Bachmann - 10%
Peter Gregory - 4.5%
Gilfoyle - 3%
Dinesh - 3%
Jared Dunn - 3%
Monica - 0.5%
Option pool for future hires - 30%*
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