The truth is, that person is not a normal employee, it's the first hire in a very early stage business. If you treat that hire as a regular employee, you will b

The truth is, that person is not a normal employee, it's the first hire in a very early stage business. If you treat that hire as a regular employee, you will build expectations and won't be able to live up to it, and it will backfire for both of you 6-8 months down the road. If that's true, then I hope that person gets compensation that is consistent with that status. I wouldn't have a problem with that... what gets me is when people want somebody to basically act like a founder in terms of commitment, but the compensation is just "regular employee". F that.