For example, if a highly sought-after AI expert founds a startup with a talented but somewhat junior businessperson, their market-rate salaries could be 2-5 times different and a case could be made that the one with higher market-rate salary makes a larger sacrifice/take on more risks and thus should be compensated more?
At the same time, the senior cofounder could have a much larger need for salary because of mortgage and family to take care of, so receiving too little salary would cause hardship and adversely affect the startup, while the junior person has less financial obligations.
Yes, yes it should and it regularly does. Jantz's suggestions are just that - suggestions. As he says himself:
> However, our data set is quite limited and the numbers produced by the calculator should by no means be taken as the ultimate truth.
As with all of VC's publicly available content - don't treat it as dogma. It's a guideline and think for yourself.