3 ms·

> If someone is demanding a $450K/year base compensation as a co-founder, they're not looking at this as a true co-founder role. A co-founder would want to focu

> If someone is demanding a $450K/year base compensation as a co-founder, they're not looking at this as a true co-founder role. A co-founder would want to focus on equity and take something like $150K/year so the company could hire 1-2 additional engineers with the other $300K/year. I think we're both making some assumptions around what GP was offered, but I would agree with you that asking for $450k as a cofounder is unreasonable. But I'd say that for someone closer to middle age with a family, $200k isn't unreasonable. The idea is that you want the cofounder to focus on the company, so you remove the financial distraction. > Not everyone is cut out for the risk-taking of a co-founder role. Sure, but that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm saying that you should not expect your co-founder and their kids to live on ramen. If you want the experience they offer, you gotta pay their bills. It's not about extravagance, it's just the cost of mitigating the same risk that the 20-something cofounder faces and mitigates with their own salary. It just costs more to do it with someone who is a little further along in life.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> I think we're both making some assumptions around what GP was offered, but I would agree with you that asking for $450k as a cofounder is unreasonable. But I'd say that for someone closer to middle age with a family, $200k isn't unreasonable. The idea is that you want the cofounder to focus on the company, so you remove the financial distraction. That's basically what I said in my other comment above, right down to the same $200K number: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30517360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30517360 The parent commenter responded that they don't like startups at all due to the high failure rate. Between that and the unwillingness to give up immediate compensation, I think it's likely that they just don't really want to be a startup co-founder. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not really cool to blame a startup for having expectations in line with standard startup practices (assuming they weren't offering $50K or something silly)

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> I think we're both making some assumptions around what GP was offered, but I would agree with you that asking for $450k as a cofounder is unreasonable. But I'd say that for someone closer to middle age with a family, $200k isn't unreasonable. The idea is that you want the cofounder to focus on the company, so you remove the financial distraction. That's basically what I said in my other comment above, right down to the same $200K number: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30517360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30517360 The parent commenter responded that they don't like startups at all due to the high failure rate. Between that and the unwillingness to give up immediate compensation, I think it's likely that they just don't really want to be a startup co-founder. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not really cool to blame a startup for having expectations in line with standard startup practices (assuming they weren't offering $50K or something silly)