Ok, well I mean I just had these conversations. Here’s how they went:

VCs: how much are you planning to take out as exec salary?

Me: so I’m not sure what’s appropriate there. I’m currently earning about 800k combined with my full time job and some consulting gigs. Obviously I’m not expecting anywhere near that, that would chew up our runway far too fast. But I have two kids on private preschool and live in a very expensive town. And I certainly don’t want to have to distract myself with consulting on the side in order to maintain my family’s lifestyle. So uh, what’s standard here?

VCs: well we usually cap out executive salary at $250k

Me: OK, I think I can work with that.

This is a negotiation with the VCs. I’m going through it right now and $250k seems to be acceptable in my case. A big step down from what I’m earning currently, but not low enough I’d have to take my kids out of private school, sell my house etc. I think from their point of view, if I had to make serious lifestyle changes that negatively affected my family then I’d be too likely to give up and go back to Big Tech the moment things got difficult.