What should founders pay themselves? | Waseem Daher (Co-founder and CEO, Pilot)

The Data Minute

In this episode of The Data Minute, Peter Walker (Head of Insights at Carta) and Waseem Daher (Co-founder and CEO, Pilot) discuss all things financial for early-stage startups. They go deep on founders' salaries, those important calculations every startup should know, like burn rate and runway, as well as building a startup in different interest rate environments.
Throughout this episode, you'll hear references to Pilot's incredible founder salary report, which you should check out here: https://pilot.com/report/founder-salary-2024
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Chapters:
00:00 Welcome
1:43 Intro to Pilot
2:56 Founder salary report overview
6:15 Founder salaries by location and team
7:44 The AI founder market
10:12 Common questions on founder salaries and financials
11:58 Managing burn rate
12:51 Runway timelines
16:36 Difference in the pre and post-zero interest rate era
18:54 Discussing layoffs
21:02 The emphasis on different metrics
22:14 What does “line of sight" mean?
24:25 Advice for founders
27:05 The capital light VC
29:11 Closing thoughts
This presentation contains general information only and eShares, Inc. dba Carta, Inc. (“Carta”) is not, by means of this publication, rendering accounting, business, financial, investment, legal, tax, or other professional advice or services, and is for informational purposes only. This presentation is not a substitute for such professional advice or services nor should it be used as a basis for any decision or action that may affect your business or interests. © 2024 eShares, Inc., dba Carta, Inc. All rights reserved.