Hacker News Reader

It seems like your "developers only produce crap" and "don't make offers that are favorable to developers" philosophies may be more related than you think.

I actually agree, but you have to pay people. That means you need to have enough cash -- either in startup capital or revenue -- to pay a fair market wage for the work you're getting. If you do, then absolutely that's how you should compensate your work force; it's better for everyone. But too many founders take $400k in seed money to start a business that's going to need 12 months and 4 people's time to reach revenue and another 18 months to break even. How are those founders supposed to make that work? The right answer is not to accept the $400k because he really needs more like $2m, but that's not what people are doing, so the extra money has to come from somewhere and that somewhere is the employees' pockets.

Uh, well you have to pay them. So either pay them cash or incentivize with equity? Aligning interests is essential for a startup.