Came to write this same comment. The first 10 employees of a company are so critical to success and they tend to be drastically underpaid. A founding engineer (often employee 3 or 4) would be lucky to get 1.5% at most places while the CTO has 30-50% and they probably have very equal impact on the company in the early days. And engineers do well by comparison. The first customer-facing roles often get barely any equity at all while they hustle to actually make an idea into a business.
The VCs have convinced the founders that they are special people and they deserve 10-100x the rewards of their best employees. They do this to create room in the cap table for themselves of course. They also give the founders early liquidation opportunities to keep them on their team.
It’s disgusting, and the founders wonder why some people don’t want to grind as hard as they do.
The VCs have convinced the founders that they are special people and they deserve 10-100x the rewards of their best employees. They do this to create room in the cap table for themselves of course. They also give the founders early liquidation opportunities to keep them on their team.
It’s disgusting, and the founders wonder why some people don’t want to grind as hard as they do.