Exactly. There may be some overgeneralization or maybe exageration sometimes about the first employee doing all the work while the founders get to enjoy the fame and the money.

Let me add my case: 3 founders, I am one of them, we all worked for more than 1 year, not being paid, not taking a single day of vacation, not even weekends, to understand our market, build our product, and launch. Our first employee came after that, and while we started paying ourselves, on minimum wages, our first employee (developper) was paid slightly above market level and working normal hours. We have 5 employees today, they all get paid at market level or above, we recently raised funds (at seed level), less than 1M, and we (founders) still work 7/7 most of the time.

I understand how first employees may have the feeling they do not have what they deserve, and in some startups that may be true, but can we say this feeling is _sometimes_ a cognitive bias due to the employee not perceiving the financial risks involved in creating a company, and the amount of work done by founders?