If he worked for free, he _did_ put in money of his own. So it depends on what his salary cut was, and for how long. I've been thinking of starting a company fo

If he worked for free, he _did_ put in money of his own. So it depends on what his salary cut was, and for how long. I've been thinking of starting a company for ages, but there's no escaping this fact -- I have to give up a substantial amount of money, and the most likely scenario is my company won't take off (much less make a profit, and even less an exit). I agree employees should be compensated but ultimately, if they get a salary on day one, it is a very different calculation. I've worked as an early stage employee, and the salary cut I took was ~30% for ~1 year. I may get a payout from that, perhaps 1-5x and to me that seems a pretty reasonable balance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯