Ah, a trick question. Employees should always negotiate to be paid their market rate, regardless of the stage of the company. Founders can pay themselves as l

Ah, a trick question. Employees should always negotiate to be paid their market rate, regardless of the stage of the company. Founders can pay themselves as little as they like, but once they start hiring people they need to actually pay those people to work for them. Stock options (on top of that market rate) and other things are a nice way of offsetting the risk that the company will go away in a matter of months, but never make the mistake of trading away salary for them. Doing otherwise is a combination of betting on other people's lottery tickets and simply being taken advantage of.