For whatever it's worth we paid $175,000 when we started the company, but we now pay (everyone) $185,657. Of the three founders, two had kids -- and many of ou

For whatever it's worth we paid $175,000 when we started the company, but we now pay (everyone) $185,657. Of the three founders, two had kids -- and many of our employees have young families or others that they provide for. In terms of the original question, I think it's (very) fair to ask your co-founders about the salary they deem appropriate for themselves. Some follow up questions might be around the salaries that you intend to pay employees; if it's any lower than old €150K (that is, if they want to pay themselves more than they pay your future employees), that is a huge, huge red flag. Another may be: do we (as a company) hold financial prudence as a value? If expenses are high (kids, mortgage, etc.), there may be some good reasons for this -- but based on the way you are phrasing your question, I suspect that there is a deeper fracture in underlying values that you want to understand before you make long-term commitments to one another. Finally, if I may offer one additional piece of advice: if you are going to take more salary, consider putting founders on a longer term vest (e.g., 6 or 8 years instead of 4). If your co-founders balk at this, there is again an indicator that something deeper is amiss...