> Sure, every business starts with an idea, but a business is a product, and manufacturing, and supply chains, and financial reports, and customer service.
> Once you involve other stakeholders, you become accountable. You become accountable to your customers, shareholders, and employees. That's a difficult thing for a founder who is used to exerting complete control over the thing they're building.
I tried to get a bit more equity before I signed [1], explaining that it seemed like I would be doing the lion's share of the work, so I felt I deserved at least 10-15% equity. The "founder" then told me that they deserve most of the equity because they had the "idea" for this startup, and I told them that everyone has ideas! Ideas are useful and necessary but also extremely cheap and unspectacular. No one gives a shit about your "idea", at least not until you've actually done some actual work to objectively prove that the idea is good.
[1] I was still somewhat young in my career and the red flags that I have now had not been fully developed.
Also, why are stakeholders being infantalized like they're some completely naive and innocent bystanders? Customers presumably are not forced to buy what you're selling, shareholders know their capital is at risk, and employees get paid every month. Are we supposed to be everyone's psychologist and finance advisor as well? Everyone's making their own decisions.