What everything exactly? I don’t know a single CEO who isn’t paid at least a good average wage of a high-level exec in a startup.
On top of that, they have 0 liability if anything goes south.
And then the golden chutes.
Individual founders that are most likely to be a current or past employees, and not someone that has climbed into the C-suite.
There is no golden parachute for a new private company. If it fails, the founder will likely have to go back to regular employment (much more difficult if he exited stable employment to work full time on his project). Whatever money is used up (usually personal) is lost forever and any plans of retirement must be pushed back.