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Suggesting anything more than 1% is ludicrous.

It's clear this company is being bankrolled by an existing company, and as far as we can tell he's a recent grad, junior programmer who did an architect degree first. They had the idea, 1.5 years of work done already and money before he came.

They're not in a high risk position and that they're offering him anything at all is actually surprising.

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Correct on the last point: they are not in a high risk position.

Coming in as first employee into a pre-seed company is high risk. That is not a 1% position. You can only go by what he is saying: that he is well and uniquely qualified for the position. If the job (at this stage of the company) truly needs his fairly unique skillset and experience, he needs to come in as not just "first employee" but "first executive". Which is a 5% position.

Hi Matt, the product they developed over 1.5 years is a proof of concept and far from MvP. Further, they did not work on it full time over the last 1.5 years, they had their other jobs.

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