I like this discussion! I'm interested in more equitable and humane company structures and looking for better ways to collaborate. In my day (2014 lol), Foundin

I like this discussion! I'm interested in more equitable and humane company structures and looking for better ways to collaborate. In my day (2014 lol), Founding Engineer was not a common role, it was called "Engineer #1". When we exited, I think I (one of 3 co-founders) netted about 10x my awesome first engineer. He's one of my best friends and the diff seems kind of fair to both of us. Here's what I did that they didn't: - worked 24/7 (ok, 12/6) for the first 4 years including 1 where I was paid $0. He was more like 10/5 and came 1 year in. Still an absolute beast but we'd often talk about how I had to work "founders hours" and him employee hours. - took 1/2 his salary when we hired him after raising our seed - immediately had to push way out of my comfort zone in terms of responsibilities (investor stuff, copywriting, support, hiring, managing, partnerships, running ads) At a base level, we're just kind of different people. He had hobbies outside of our company and I was a locked-in computer monk. The other bit is that he was not like a highly paid Facebook engineer. He had gone back to the midwest after school and we were able to 2x his salary and move him to SF. Founders hiring the first employees need to really scour their network for diamonds that big tech might miss, because it's pretty well accepted that your odds of getting rich are much higher in big tech than startups.