IMO the distinction between &quot;founder&quot; and any executive-level hire before your B round are largely meaningless.<p>You should know pretty early on what roles your core leadership team needs to have. You should set aside equity for those roles as if they were founders -- especially for senior people, who are often giving up a lot in salary to work for a startup. You&#x27;re obviously not going to give founder equity to a CS grad fresh out of college, but maybe you should for say, your head of customer relations (if customer service is a strategic driver for you, of course). You should especially give founder equity to anyone whose job is to establish a department from nothing.<p>And does it really matter in the end anyway? If your company fails, your equity is worth $0 no matter how much you have. If your company is the next Google, then you&#x27;re all going to be so rich it won&#x27;t matter. But I would much rather have leadership who is heavily invested in the success of the company than someone who is just going to bolt to start his own company after 2 years because its obvious he&#x27;s not going to get a million-dollar payday.<p>That said, you still have to protect your equity (liquidation preferences, vesting schedules, etc). But the focus on one founder or another&#x27;s role is usually meaningless: your leadership team works as a team. If you have weak links, it should be easy to get consensus around a buyout or contract renegotiation.