Founders probably aren't able to hire because they can't get enough money from investors to pay market salaries or because their company just plain sucks. Maybe

Founders probably aren't able to hire because they can't get enough money from investors to pay market salaries or because their company just plain sucks. Maybe they think that because they've convinced investors that they're onto something that it means prospective hires won't know better? Put yourself in these people's shoes. Even if your company has a chance to be worth a billion dollars, you're going to have to do better than a quarter point. After several rounds of dilutions, a seed-stage employee with a quarter point of even a $1B company would end up with ~$1.5M. You've got to be offering people a 10-100X opportunity of what they'd get working at BigCos to get good talent, not 50% more. Corollary: if you are giving engineers at your pre-series-A company less than a point and 50% of market salary, you are probably not hiring great talent.