This post completely contradicts the incentives behind founding a company in the first place. A founder should only get (truly) paid on a liquidation event, be

This post completely contradicts the incentives behind founding a company in the first place. A founder should only get (truly) paid on a liquidation event, be it an IPO, acquisition, or a new round of funding (this last one being a very big no-no). No founder should ever be paying themselves market rate. If you hire a CEO from the outside and you need them for your company to succeed, _that's_ an instance when pay market value. But, if it's just you running the company, you should be keeping cash in the company, deferring to when it really pays off. Should you be eating ramen for 10 years until you sell a billion-dollar company? Of course not. You also shouldn't be squeezing every penny into your salary until you hit "market value." I have a trick for how much you should pay yourself: figure out how much you need to make per month so your company focus isn't interrupted with "how am I going to pay rent this month?"