No solution was offered here. This generic advice could be applied to anything: "in order to solve XYZ, ask some of your peers and perhaps try some products whose stated purpose is to solve XYZ".
big co salary = startup salary + #shares * (stock price - option strike price).
EDIT: diving one level deeper, perhaps a company needs two valuations: one for investors buying the stock (market driven), and an internal one that employees are likely to accept. The two numbers should be the same, but during bubbles there might need to be a gap between them.