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by ClumsyPilot 1188 days ago
Has this ever happened in real life?
3 comments

We’re trading anecdotes here, but in all of the Series A and earlier startups I’m familiar with, the Founder/CEO is the the lowest paid person in the company. I would assume that non-Founder CEOs being hired in would typically be the highest paid individuals though.
There are headlines where the CEO takes $1 in salary, but realistically those are few and far between, and the CEO is usually well compensated in stock options and company jet usage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-dollar_salary

It is fairly common for CEOs at pre-scale startups to pay themselves just enough to live on.
To be concrete, I've heard numbers like $50k being thrown around.