[webwright]

First of all, there's a supply/demand issue here. There are a gazillion kids looking to A) break into the music business and B) spin up their own consumer software startup. Guess what? As a result, you don't get to live really well unless you make it.

Making it obviously includes a liquidity even, but it can also include great success pre-revenue and/or pre-profit. How do you think senior management at Ning is doing, salary-wise? Howabout Twitter? Digg?

The serfdom remark is just wrong. It's not serfdom-- it's sharing risk. He's risking a pile of (admittedly someone else's) money. You're risking... absolutely nothing if you're getting paid close to market rates. The closer you get to a sure thing that everyone is going to get rich (or at least get all of their cash back), the more entitled you are a market rate salary.

No one is forcing you to accept his terms. You lose nothing by punting your own startup a few years into it and getting a job at any time-- except whatever you haven't vested.

[mfhughes]

Yeah, that's kind of my point, which is to find a way to do it on your own terms instead of accepting "almost no money" for what is most certainly going to be a significant equity concession in your company.