And the best bit: non-technical co-founders usually seem to believe that they should end up with 98% or so of the equity, because after all, you're a mere technician.
Non-technical cofounders looking to take advantage of others are over-represented in this pool because they never get selected.
They continue going on meeting after meeting, looking for a mark. Meanwhile, the genuinely good non-technical (or technical, for that matter) co-founders are quickly selected out of the pool.
It's the same reason that you're far more likely to encounter someone who can't FizzBuzz during interviews than you are as a coworker: The developers who can't do the job are doing 10-50X more interviews than the developers who are good at their job, so you're going to see far more unemployable devs than employable devs with a random sampling of interviews even though most devs are employable.
This is a common misconception. If someone says they want to bring you in as a cofounder, they almost always will think of you as a significant equity partner.
That's only usual if the product is weak, your rep is high or if you have a relationship.
To be an equal you need equal equity but it is not that simple. Two friends holding 66% can dilute you, move your work into another company assgin a low value and cut you out. The many ways to get screwed is extremely high.
I got an offer from a startup as the first dev hire (CTO/Directorish) and got an absolutely laughable equity percentage. It was insultingly low. Promptly passed and thankfully broke into FAANG where I'm going to be making probably more than even if that startup had been successful with the equity split they were going to give me.
Some shiftier startups have started to use the term "founding engineer" in their recruitment materials. I doesn't mean "cofounder" at all. Rather, it's a new, confusing term for "1st engineering hire" where you get hardly any equity and still most of the responsibility and workload associated with a cofounder role.
This is almost always true. Even companies that think they are being fair seem to offer laughably lower amount of equity to technical co founders. Even more true if the technical co founder hasnt worked in a start up or been a co founder before.
They continue going on meeting after meeting, looking for a mark. Meanwhile, the genuinely good non-technical (or technical, for that matter) co-founders are quickly selected out of the pool.
It's the same reason that you're far more likely to encounter someone who can't FizzBuzz during interviews than you are as a coworker: The developers who can't do the job are doing 10-50X more interviews than the developers who are good at their job, so you're going to see far more unemployable devs than employable devs with a random sampling of interviews even though most devs are employable.