People are not interchangable, but their skills very much are. Accountants are not being treated as drones. Whether you think their importance is extremely crucial in an early startup or less crucial it doesn't matter, because all of that is taken into account when paying them a fair wage. That is de facto the definition of fair. So nobody needs to feel offended. You deliver a great job and we pay you a great salary according to market rates and your experience. This is how the world works.
If a coffee fetcher or accountant would come to a startup owner and say I want a piece of your company for making you coffee or filing your tax returns then they better back up why the business owner will not just ask someone else to do it at this point. It's not that they don't value their contribution, but it's just not a reason to give away a piece of your ownership of your own company where you've put blood and sweat into it.
However, if a subject matter expert comes to me with the same request, and the market is such that there's already very little people of that qualification available anyway, and their contributions are seen as make or break the company, then the conversatoin will certainly be very different.
This is just the free market, no matter how you feel about this, it won't change. There's obviously the argument that the free market doesn't serve us well, but that's a different conversation and out of this context here.
I think you miss my point that the accountant is part of your team. They are doing more than just the job of accounting and help build the company culture. The culture, teamwork etc. are intangibles that will make a big long term difference.
You are certainly within your rights to decide to keep all the equity to a small number of people but you'll be building a very different company than one I would want to work for.
For example, I am very happy that my Executive Assistant has options in my company. She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.
> She's an integral part of my success and doing my job every day. There were lots of candidates for her job but we chose her. And I'll be ecstatic if one day she sees upside from having taken the job working for me.
So why don't you give her that upside? As a business owner you can pay her whatever you would like her to see earn one day. Just do it, there's no inherent reason why equity has to be given away. Of course if you prefer to pay her a promise of maybe one day cashing out, but equally not cashing out at all, then I wonder if you really value her contributions today as much as you make it sound here. Honestly, people can run amazing companies and treat their employees really really well from day one, not one day when they win the lottery.
If a coffee fetcher or accountant would come to a startup owner and say I want a piece of your company for making you coffee or filing your tax returns then they better back up why the business owner will not just ask someone else to do it at this point. It's not that they don't value their contribution, but it's just not a reason to give away a piece of your ownership of your own company where you've put blood and sweat into it.
However, if a subject matter expert comes to me with the same request, and the market is such that there's already very little people of that qualification available anyway, and their contributions are seen as make or break the company, then the conversatoin will certainly be very different.
This is just the free market, no matter how you feel about this, it won't change. There's obviously the argument that the free market doesn't serve us well, but that's a different conversation and out of this context here.