>> where you're being compensated with equity the same way that an investor would After having conversations with a few startups, this is what I figured too.

>> where you're being compensated with equity the same way that an investor would After having conversations with a few startups, this is what I figured too. Unfortunately though, the other side would not agree to the numbers that result for my salary-equity if my contributions were to be treated the same way as theirs. They correctly cite what the numbers typically look like at startups (covered by the OP too) which happen to be sub par to what I would propose based on such analysis. I had found this post very helpful: http://jacquesmattheij.com/first-employee-or-cofounder http://jacquesmattheij.com/first-employee-or-cofounder