Ever experienced being the founding engineer and getting 0.5-2.5%? The amount of work done by the founding engineer for the amount of equity they usually get, there is definitely an unfair exchange here. I'd say the founding engineer is 99% of the time better off finding a non-technical co-founder and building something for 50% each.
Strongly agree from a purely economic perspective! However, founding engineer is a good way to watch the ups and downs of a startup before doing it yourself.
Additionally, since most startups fail, the founding engineer is typically better compensated than the founders. It’s only in the success case that it is a raw deal economically. However, in the rare case that it is a successful company, the founding engineer does alright and then also knows more about how to do it again.
The difference between founding engineer and founder is typically the difference between starting before any money came in or joining after (basically guts/conviction)
Yes, and I've also personally been responsible for cutting about a million dollars per year in AWS expenditure, and never saw a single cent in bonus payouts or equity. It just got repurposed in the budget. Same with building launching a product that brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.
Maybe it depends on who you work for, but that was my experience.