Have the people you meet at parties or networking events heard of your company yet?  If not, it&#x27;s two co-founders.<p>Pithy sayings aside, the point of the article is to be <i>forward-looking</i> with equity splits.  All of the reasons you list are rearward-looking: they&#x27;re about things that have happened in the past.  The article assumes that you want your company to be much bigger in the future and that most of the work is ahead of you, which is generally YC&#x27;s investment thesis.  If you&#x27;re happy where you are, you could easily substitute employees for founders, but they will never be as motivated as someone with a big equity stake.