Are you talking about 1% and no pay or 1% and a pay?
If I'm getting no pay, I'm definitely a co-founder, but I'm getting a pretty good salary from day 0, I don't think that's too bad.
Say you get offered $200k/y +1%, if things go well, in 4 years you got $800k in cash and your 1%. If things go south, you still got $800k, a cool title, worked on a hopefully interesting product with a nice team. Doesn't sound awful to me. No?
Glad to see someone else say this. I feel like I'm crazy reading these replies about being ripped off. I've been working startups my whole career, earning salaries, working with good people and having fun at times. Sometimes the equity even pays out, but that's not my only financial "egg".
Only after they managed to raise any money, which is not as common as many people assume. And whatever you pay yourself as a founder initially eats into your runway, so that's always a tradeoff.
If I'm getting no pay, I'm definitely a co-founder, but I'm getting a pretty good salary from day 0, I don't think that's too bad.
Say you get offered $200k/y +1%, if things go well, in 4 years you got $800k in cash and your 1%. If things go south, you still got $800k, a cool title, worked on a hopefully interesting product with a nice team. Doesn't sound awful to me. No?