The veteran knows that equity is something you can negotiate hard for and is very negotiable. Regarding equity comp for early hires, presumably the founders ha

The veteran knows that equity is something you can negotiate hard for and is very negotiable. Regarding equity comp for early hires, presumably the founders have already done significant derisking by finding initial product market fit, secured initial capital, built a prototype, have buyer interest/commitments, etc. Every time I see complaints about single digit % compensation, I wonder how many of the people complaining will go out and actually put in the work of validating a market and getting the initial momentum for sales and meeting 100 "investors" and "pseudoinvestors", put in years of networking to even be loosely connected to the money network, getting 90 rejections to get your first $500k, and the shitwork of setting up a corporation and doing all this work out of pocket in exchange for 10x the equity. I mean literally no one is stopping you from setting up a company that you own 100% of the equity of.