I’ve been involved in 4 startups in my career. One was KPCB backed, one angel funded, and 2 were bootstrapped. The KPCB one flamed out early (co founded by one tech and one biz person). The angel funded one failed horribly (founded by two biz school guys who paid themselves handsomely while they piss away most of the investors money). Of the bootstrapped ventures, one was crazy successful, selling for over 20 mil to a large networking company. The other bootstrapped business, while not hitting paydirt like that, is still chugging along as a viable small company.
In both of those bootstrapped ventures, I took notice that the founding principles never called themselves “CEO”…. they were simply “founder” and sometimes “lead architect”. If they talked to VCs, it was implicit they were the CEO.

I would just like to say hello and let you know that I’m happy to be a member – been a lurker long enough

Hope to contribute some and gain some knowledge along the way….

These founders are already working out in the field and I have a hard time believing they’re going to take a 30%-50% cut in pay just because their lender (VC) wants them to.

Bottom line I agree with Peter. If you are not willing to invest and believe in your startup why should others.

Low CEO salary may be a good predictor of startup success because startup success is highly correlated with previous successes, and if you were successful in an earlier startup you don’t need a big salary in your follow on ventures. If I banked several million dollars, sure i’d be willing to work for little. But as a startup founder with a mortgage, kid’s educations, my own retirement to fund, I can’t accept, nor should I accept, $80K. I accept that a startup is risky, but not at the extent of risking my kid’s future, or my own. The upside is a bonus and may let me live at a nicer standard of living, it’s not to support my current standard of living.

at $4/gallon and the price of a pizza at $25 here in silicon valley, get real man.

perhaps we should ask peter thiel how much he makes as GP for his fund. Does he use the same salary analogy as he does with his companies.

I’m sure you’ll find he’s a hypocrite.

but i do think that just because someone has a wife and a million children, the value per dollar that they deliver to your business should be less than your 20 year old analyst getting 1/5th of their pay.

In my experience, if you’re a founder and you believe in your project, it always makes sense to put any spare cash you have (including your salary) back into your business.

I’d suggest that a better indicator of whether a startup is worth looking it isn’t how much the CEO’s being paid but how vested the Founders and the Executive team are. Being ‘all in’ aligns your interests with those of your investors much more than taking a smaller salary.