We're talking about negotiating a contract with a value on the order of a million dollars (say, US$200k total compensation per year for five years). Even if you don't have a lawyer normally, it may be worth the few hundred dollars it costs to hire one for this purpose, unless you have no savings.

I never did, though. I just crossed out the clauses I didn't want to accept and initialed them.

> I just crossed out the clauses I didn't want to accept and initialed them.

Places like Zoho or Verisign don't let you do that.