[matt-p]

Pretty much all investments work this way. I'm not saying they are on the poverty line - let's say in the UK, standard rate for a great full time programmer or average tech lead is 100k, as a co-founder you'd be earning say 50k (pre profit). You can pay your bills, even go on vacation but yes, not market rate.

[menaerus]

I appreciate the details, I am not familiar with this at all. This is pretty shitty considering that as a contractor you would need to work ~3.5 months to earn 50k for much much less work and stress.

That makes me wonder what is the profile of a startup founder who agrees to an infinitely larger amount of complexity and stress for ~4x less income? The ones that got lucky so they don't care or don't have much loose or what. Crazy.