I don't get your point? I think you are saying "early employees become future founders"?

As a former early employee, I was different from a founder in that I wanted to help build something, I didn't want to lead building something. Founder got more equity because of it. No problem from me.

The founders skills had to be way wider and more diverse than my own, and I got to stretch a bit, but still hone my core skill set.

For likely >80% of HN readers, entrepreneurship is not their day job.

Signing for a job and showing up mon-fri is not nearly the same as building a business from the ground.

I think I am feeling jaundiced - I just smell another "elite" class brewing. Turns out the thing distinguishing the elite from the masses throughout history has been money. Often money in order to for example train in warfare (ie knights or samurai) but money just the same

Our you have this belief that companies are started mostly by people with money.

A high number of the founders I know were all broke as heck to get to company success with no personal or family money.

Would they all have preferred to have had a salary while they built the company? I am guessing yes.

The "problem" is to find the "right" people to give salaries to. VC theory today seems to say "the right people are so hungry / passionate / desperate that they will work for nothing to make their project succeed, therefore we don't have to pay salaries"

My conjecture is that far far more people will make good founders of good companies than the subset that will risk family ruin. So there is a real problem in that those people "should" be given a salary and told to found the company that will benefit the world. and VCs don't know how to find or find them

I don't mean to imply thar entrepreneurs are "superior".

Just that they're quite different roles.

Entrepreneurs definitely developed (and are willing to continually develop) skills that the vast majority of employees don't. And that's fine. It's not meant that one is superior and the other inferior. Just different contributions, risks taken, etc.

Ever started a company and stuck with it for a long while? Yeah - founders without funding are VERY different than early employees, do not kid yourself.

Early employees go out and get a job; founders live through hell, making their lives very difficult to get to where they can hire. I know of many that went from tech salaries to living below poverty for years to make things work. [at least for those not funded in the valley]