- I don't think someone who has equity relatively close to the other cofounders should be called an employee. I don't think this is a controversial stance, no?
- I don't think it is fair to expect your 1st employee to put in 15-20 hour days consistently. Even if the 1st employee did put in such effort, as Rethink guys point out, they would be putting in almost the same effort as them and thus calling him/her an "employee" would be wrong.
- A big objection you seem to have relates to how long the company has existed. You think that 3 months is a long time for a cofounder to come in. If you look at the longterm roadmap of a startup, the initial 3 months hardly register. Do you think 10 years from now the new cofounder will look back and feel inferior to the other founders? With each passing day the 3 month thing becomes less significant.
Your disagreements are not so much about semantics as your lack of understanding between the possible difference in pay, expectations etc. between a cofounder and 1st employee. It might be subtle but it exists.
- I don't think it is fair to expect your 1st employee to put in 15-20 hour days consistently. Even if the 1st employee did put in such effort, as Rethink guys point out, they would be putting in almost the same effort as them and thus calling him/her an "employee" would be wrong.
- A big objection you seem to have relates to how long the company has existed. You think that 3 months is a long time for a cofounder to come in. If you look at the longterm roadmap of a startup, the initial 3 months hardly register. Do you think 10 years from now the new cofounder will look back and feel inferior to the other founders? With each passing day the 3 month thing becomes less significant.
Your disagreements are not so much about semantics as your lack of understanding between the possible difference in pay, expectations etc. between a cofounder and 1st employee. It might be subtle but it exists.