There's a big range between "no money for the present" and some salary at or below 150k a year. The point is that the CEO shouldn't be "getting rich" from thei

There's a big range between "no money for the present" and some salary at or below 150k a year. The point is that the CEO shouldn't be "getting rich" from their salary. They should be able to live comfortably, but not necessarily extravagantly (anything over 75k a year in SF or NYC should really suffice). If the CEO has aspirations of some day living extravagantly, she needs to have a successful exit. It sounds like you're arguing that an "under paid" CEO might push for an exit quicker and at lower value than they might otherwise, if they had a higher salary. Almost every exit is successful, and not at all a guarantee. A CEO so short sighted that they take a much smaller early exit, probably is short sighted enough to fail at running a business and will likely end up with no exit at all. As long as the CEO can pay for rent, food, family expenses and has at least 1k left over for whatever each month, that's more than enough. If a startup CEO is making a million a year, there's not as much incentive to get to a successful exit. Instead, there's more incentive to keep things going as long as possible to milk that salary. Reducing salary to a reasonable rate (I don't think anyone here is advocating ramen and a sleeping bag under the desk) and keeping incentives tied to a successful exit keeps the motivation where it needs to be.