It sounds like there's a bit of a trend towards passing some of that risk on to the employee early-on though, by not really considering the job a real job with a presumption of continuation. The 2nd story here recommends only "trial-hiring" people for 1 or 2 months at a time, and even companies that don't go that extreme have been trending towards quick-to-fire for vague reasons like "poor fit" (more than bigger companies). Of course, you can always be fired in a regular job (in at-will states), but the understanding is that you normally won't be fired one month in, unless either you totally screw up or the company's situation changes significantly. Hence you have a bit less risk because you have normal job + salary, while founders have more risk, but that's not as true if you don't really have normal-job anymore. Of course, if you have a pile of contract work you can transition to at a moment's notice even this arrangement might not be a huge risk, but depends on the person. And in that case you might prefer to just stay a contractor and bill your regular rates, rather than shouldering the opportunity risk of committing to a possibly-evaporating job.