I think part of the confusion here is what determines the difference between a founder and an employee.  Are there two founders?  Three?  Five?  Seven?  When did they all start working?  Are they all working full time?  Are they all taking a salary?  Not to mention that you can&#x27;t just grant equity out of thin air once a company has been founded.  There are tax implications, especially after you&#x27;ve raised money.  I can&#x27;t imagine telling an investor that they&#x27;re going to get significantly diluted because I have a new founder that needs 20% of the company because &quot;all founders get the same share&quot;.<p>If you were all there together at the inception of the company and all agree to work fulltime on the project and can contribute equally than it makes sense to split up the equity equally.  But just saying &quot;everyone should get the same share&quot; seems to simplify things a bit much.