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What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

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Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#61

Post by elwell »

michaelochurch wrote: post #22
ivanplenty wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you. (My email is my HN handle at gmail) You may or may not be right about this or the rest of VC-istan. But I LOVE the fervor and color of your posts. I love hearing a contrarian view. And I would love to buy you a cup of coffee or beer to say thanks for making my time of HN so much more interesting.…

This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you. Actually, it's at +9 [ETA: changed during writing of reply] right now. [+12 as of 11.56 PST] The reason my posts tend to end up at the bottom is not (in general) downvoting or low karma scores. Of course, I've had some posts get downvoted, and a smaller number that deserved it. (Who hasn't?) The r…

You can email pg or someone else with authority and get it removed.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#62

Post by elwell »

scarmig wrote: post #24
michaelochurch wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you. Actually, it's at +9 [ETA: changed during writing of reply] right now. [+12 as of 11.56 PST] The reason my posts tend to end up at the bottom is not (in general) downvoting or low karma scores. Of course, I've had some posts get downvoted, and a smaller number that deserved it. (Who hasn't?) The r…

I wonder if upvoting rankbanned people itself incurs a penalty...

The Arc macros have taken a life of their own. PG's not directly to blame.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#63

Post by dangero »

icambron wrote: post #59
dangero wrote: post #8

I've always heard that a founder's salary should be the amount that allows the founder to focus on the business. The concept of a super low salary seems to be focused on the 20 something single crowd. I have a family to support, so I can't take a super small salary and eat Top Ramen. This may be a subtle way that older founders are discriminated against. The story I've heard from founders who have families is that th…

> I've always heard that a founder's salary should be the amount that allows the founder to focus on the business From whose perspective? For you as a founder, certainly that makes sense (how else would you do it?), but requiring a higher salary is definitely a real disadvantage and your investors and cofounders are right to see it that way. It should surprise you not at all that having a high cost base limits your o…

You can certainly argue that the extra experience you have from previous work makes up for that relative to a replacement candidate who can work for a ramen salary. I'm not completely convinced that's true in the general case

That's really the question. Is experience in industry worth anything in the case of a startup founder? You're saying you don't think so which obviously means it's a "worse" deal for investors.

An engineer with experience can earn a lot more annually in industry, so if they are given equal salary at a startup to somebody with no experience, what's happening is that they are being required to take on even more opportunity cost.

I think the bottom line is that a 20 something with a small pool of experience fits a very cookie cutter scenario that makes it an easy risk calculation for the investor. To say a deal is "better" or "worse" compared to an experienced founder who requires a larger salary is really impossible to calculate.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#64

Post by jakejake »

basseq wrote: post #42
jakejake wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this article is somewhat misleading in my opinion. I would imagine that a lot of CEOs only pay themselves a fraction of their income through typical payroll. Steve Jobs famously paid himself $1 salary. Although in his case he apparently didn't take other forms of compensation since apparently he didn't need the income. But many other CEOs are known to take low salaries and then get millions in bonuses or stocks.

Although in his case he apparently didn't take other forms of compensation since apparently he didn't need the income. He received millions in stock options (e.g., a December 2001 grant of 7.5 million options to Jobs that subsequently ended in a backdating scandal) and an Apple-sponsored private plane beyond his salary.

Ah, so much for Wikipedia! Well I guess that goes to prove my point even further than CEOs can appear to be making no salary but are actually receiving tons of money.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#66

Post by underwater »

ivanplenty wrote: post #15
michaelochurch wrote: post #11

The lower the CEO salary, the more likely it is to succeed. Sure, but this an obvious "correlation is not causation" situation and the reason for this is unpleasant. If you're from a middle-class background, you have to take full salary because that's the only money you have to live on. If you're from an upper-class background, taking full salary hurts your relationship with investors, and will possibly hurt your bar…

This post will be downvoted to hell, but I have been wanting to say this for a while and can't find a way to contact you. (My email is my HN handle at gmail) You may or may not be right about this or the rest of VC-istan. But I LOVE the fervor and color of your posts. I love hearing a contrarian view. And I would love to buy you a cup of coffee or beer to say thanks for making my time of HN so much more interesting.…

I'm one of those who commented on your post yesterday, and I'm sure you placed me on the second bucket. I'm in no way connected to VCs. However, my post was overly snarky, so I'll take this opportunity to elaborate.

I thought your post had interesting content and a thorough analysis. But the tone of your post was off-putting. You had a condescending tone and spoke in absolutes: "Everpix should have shut its doors immediately as it never could be a viable business". Particularly when taken in the context of swisspol's reply it's obvious that your commentary missed the mark.

The comparison to your own photo startup felt like an unnecessary addition. The constant assurances that you had done the right thing in aborting your launch felt like self-justification rather than something that was added for the reader's benefit.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#67

Post by shaggy »

Somewhere along the line, this concept of a founder/CEO taking a tiny salary got worked into the way start-ups work. Should a founder be paying themselves a huge salary and living it up based on that? No. Should they be able to pay themselves a livable wage that doesn't mean they are spending their nest egg or making drastic cuts in how they live? Yes.

This article is lacking in one key area, which makes the argument valid or not. How much money these startups are making. With out that data, this is just another self fulfilling prophecy that the VCs and their followers can point to and say, see?

I'd be lumped into the older founder class and having a family to support I could not take a giant pay cut if I started a business. I save and manage my money carefully but I would pay myself the same salary I make now so that I could at least have the same level of money comfort I have now. Doing anything differently is simply stupid and a VC that is angry about it isn't someone you should do business with. It's a way they keep their power when at the end of the day the people with the idea that makes all the money should have the power. You want 10 or 20% of my company? Great, I'm going to pay myself what I'm worth. The minute people stop letting themselves be bullied by VCs is exactly when this kind of stupidity stops happening.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#68

Post by kordless »

the_watcher wrote: post #53
beat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Married founders, especially with children, must also maintain the support and good graces of their #1 lead investor - their spouse. And founders with spouses are less likely to be easily manipulated or bullied by investors. Another cause for investors to be less than thrilled with them.

> Another cause for investors to be less than thrilled with them. Bad investors. Good investors will let good founders so their thing and support them.

There are lots of bad investors, that is for certain.

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#69

Post by Domenic_S »

nostromo wrote: post #47
dangero wrote: post #8

I've always heard that a founder's salary should be the amount that allows the founder to focus on the business. The concept of a super low salary seems to be focused on the 20 something single crowd. I have a family to support, so I can't take a super small salary and eat Top Ramen. This may be a subtle way that older founders are discriminated against. The story I've heard from founders who have families is that th…

Older founders have had more time to prove themselves and should in theory have a nest egg large enough to take a sabbatical to start a business. For example, when I decided I wanted to start a business, I talked with my significant other about it at length. When we bought a house, we bought a duplex where the other half pays the entire mortgage. Now, I'm actually able to focus on my business (or projects, or whateve…

Your comment summed up: "Look how clever I am!"

Re: What salary does the founder of your favorite startup get?

#70

Post by sudonim »

elwell wrote: post #60
sudonim wrote: post #48

Here's data for Customer.io for comparison: * Currently based in NYC * Raised ~$700k. * Both of us founders are each @ $80k and have been the same with the exception of a couple of months at minimum wage. The goal with these salaries, was to be able to not think about money while working on the company. It kind of worked. 80k in NYC doesn't get you very far unless you're making huge lifestyle changes and not eating o…

> 80k in NYC doesn't get you very far wow

Yup! One of the reasons I'm planning to leave the city.
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