Remember this was the person that if they didn't come onboard at that time the startup would die. You do whatever it takes if that's the case.

Now if it is a random person easy to replace giving away 1/2 would be crazy.

58 days is under two months and a startup could hire someone within a week. I've seen someone apply, the owner chat with them a bit, hire them and they were driving across country the next day. Not every founder has those abilities to sell the candidate and have the judgement and believe in themselves to hire on intuition. If you can't do that you might fail where others succeed.