Ask HN: What is a good lead founder's salary?

As little as possible. You want every bit of free cash to be going back into the company.

The difference between a $75k and a $150k salary is an extra employee.

Peter Thiel has gone so far as to say that the best predictor of startup success is a low CEO salary.

Har har, nice try Steve.

In seriousness, I find this a curious thought experiment too. Obviously, minimum salary at first makes perfect sense. But let's say that there is a successful business with good cash flow -- what then? One doesn't want to appear gauche, but it's good to allow the founder to lead a more full life a little bit, same idea as allowing for liquidity events in subsequent rounds of financing, right?

before you really get financial traction (from paying users) it should be low (imho around the 50k) as you set the expectations for the rest of the team. One way to still get some cash upfront after the seedround closing is to have in your seed agreement that the company's debt twds you (the amount you invested either in cash or salary not paid) be repaid in a slump sum. You could do the same after the seed: salary should be 80k but you just get 50 and the rest will be repaid as debt owed when Series A comes in.

pay minimum living expenses with a little cushion to be safe?