Interesting article written from the perspective of a VC.  For anyone out there who is thinking of joining a startup, my suggestion is that you go in with open eyes, not open heart. If you are going to be hired as employee, make sure you are treated as an employee and are compensated accordingly. The test is simple. Are you going to be paid at market value? If you are, no problem. It would be a great learning experience and you are not taking any financial risk (opportunity risk, may be). But if you are asked to cut back (or even forgo) on salaries, then you are a co-Founder no matter how long the startup has been around, how long the Founder has been working on his/her idea and who is the VC's behind the scene. Make sure you are rewarded as such (i.e., lots of Founder stock, not stock options). Most importantly, you need to learn the difference between "liking" someone and "respecting" someone. As an entrepreneur, you don't need to "like" someone to have a business relationship with them. It is not an ethical violation to pretend to like. You just cannot pretend to "respect".