Do you reward these people with more than a fraction of a percent of equity? As someone who likes WLB enough, isn't enough of a gambler to take a 0.001% chance of being a millionaire over a 25-50% chance of getting a nice 6 figure payout from a more established startup, and has too many kids to boot, I never bothered looking at a company that didn't have a health insurance plan and a 401k match. But when I learned it was common for a founding engineer to get like half a percent of the company, I was appalled. I'd rather just start my own startup and roll the dice there if I'm still going to have to build the whole damn thing just for a fraction of a percent in equity.

It seems super weird that you'd literally be in the trenches with 1-2 other people who each have as much equity as 50-100 of you.

Otherwise, I mean, why should someone brilliant work for you instead of a company with much better odds of success?

Clearly, companies do hire founding engineers at these rates so maybe I'm the crazy one. But it just seems wild to me.