[awicklander]

There's another option that people never seem to talk about. Treat people well, give them a good working environment, and give them a fair salary based on the fact that they don't have any equity.

Most engineers I know with stock options and a discounted salary would have been much better with a higher annual salary and no stock options at all.

[prostoalex]

This is attractive for someone out of college, but if you're trying to attract someone senior with a YouTube/Google/LinkedIn/Facebook/Twitter exit in their resume (and sometimes multiple of those, not that uncommon in the Valley), your fair salary is likely to be less than the total package they can get elsewhere.

[Iftheshoefits]

In that case odds are the startup doesn't have sufficient funds to pay for the talent it (thinks it) needs. I'd argue that this means the startup is: a) mistaken about its needs; b) poorly run; or c) a bad idea (e.g. the price the target market is willing to pay is insufficient to support even the optimally efficient startup's costs to provide service).

[argonaut]

This misses the point. Prostoalex's point is that a senior engineer can pull $300k+ at a place like Google/Facebook/etc., all while working less than 9 hours a day with lavish perks.

When a senior engineer goes off and tries to work at a startup, it is precisely because they want to try playing the lottery (with a very fat equity slice), not because they're going out to try and get a ultra-competitive cash salary.

[prostoalex]

Well, one way to attract quality people without sufficient funds is to be generous with equity. The more senior you get, the less sensitive potential early hires are to the salary levels - their investment income alone is likely to be multiples of whatever you plan to offer salary-wise. Getting them sold on owning a larger stake in an interesting company will probably get them excited.

[zacharycohn]

Sometimes there is not money to do that.

[gohrt]

If the idea can't get angel funding or a bank loan, then perhaps the idea isn't good enough to build.

[zacharycohn]

Or the founder prefers to bootstrap it?