No, it doesn’t. It simply means if nobody founds it there is no company in the first place.

Whoever wants to do the first 3-6 months (or 3-6 years) without a paycheck while figuring out the problem, solution and funding gets to be the founder.

If employees were lowballed underpaid, screwed out of vested shares etc that’s different but of course the person that decides to make the company owns most of it and gets the biggest payout when it sells.

No, it rests on the realistic assumption that there are a million engineers you can hire to be "early employees", and only a handful of Josh Porters with the talent to build something great and the risk tolerance to execute on it.

The market doesn't care about your fragile ego or low self-esteem.

No, it says that those that take the biggest risks get the biggest outcomes. Being an early employee of a startup doesn't give you the "right" to a big payout any more than being an founder of a startup gives you a right to inexpensive labor.

Or, you know, negotiate higher equity and stop bitching and moralizing when your payout isn’t high enough.

> Or, you know, negotiate higher equity and stop bitching and moralizing when your payout isn’t high enough.

Seriously, what is your point here, besides acting like a jerk? I mean, I totally agree with you, but that's why I think this thread is important. It should be a lesson to potential startup employees about how extremely lopsided the risk/return considerations are, that most equity deals are complete shit at startups, and that you should usually demand more equity if you have any negotiating power.

Indeed, the purpose of threads like this should be to convince startup employees as a whole that they're getting screwed on equity so they should demand more.

I didn't think it was a jerk comment at all.

Your point is 100% right though. Early startup employees rarely understand the risk/reward. Surely none of the 10 employees at a 7 year old software company doing 1.6M a year thought they were on a rocketship.

This thread has nothing to do with a level headed discussion on the "fairness" of equity (which doesn't even make sense). I was responding to a comment calling Josh a dick for finally getting paid for a company he built that adds value to thousands of customer's lives, instead of giving it to highly replaceable early engineers.

Average software engineer gets compensated with 6 figure income for 7 years leading to a $70k cash payout. What a jerk that Josh is.

Rise, proletariat, rise.

So one is supposed to negotiate for higher equity but at the same time those who have gone through it aren't supposed to discuss their experience and payout?

I suspect you're also one of those people who says employees should just have negotiated better salaries but also fires them for discussing salaries.