Early-Stage Founder's Guide to Compensation Strategy: Rules to Break and Follow

An expert-curated guide on how early-stage founders should structure employee compensation, featuring insights from leaders at Google, Instacart, Clay, and Applied Intuition. The article identifies common compensation myths to avoid (over-allocating equity, paying top-of-market salaries, waiting for review cycles) and best practices to follow, emphasizing the importance of a clear comp philosophy and real-time performance recognition.