Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.
Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:
Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year
AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)
Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%
Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)
We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations—but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.
Through 3 startups, I've made every compensation mistake possible. I've paid myself too little (classic first-time founder mistake), worried obsessively about investor perception, and eventually learned that founder compensation is a business decision, not a moral test of commitment.
Today I'm here to talk about whatever's on your mind:
Founder compensation strategy
Fundraising approaches (I've raised from top VCs across multiple companies)
Financial management in today's capital-efficient era
Hiring, scaling, exits—or anything else you want to discuss
I’m also excited to do a giveaway. Just type “ENTER” and you’ll be entered to win:
Two founders will receive 1-hour pitch deck review sessions with me.
One lucky founder will get a full year of Pilot services - That’s bookkeeping & help from our CFO services team free of charge, worth $80K.
Once you type “ENTER” someone from my team will DM you to get your email address and company website and I’ll follow up over email with the winners.
Ok, on to the show! Here's the link to download our 2025 Founder Salary Report: https://pilot.com/report/founder-salary-2025
Let's get into the real talk about founder finances. Ask me anything!
Replies
Already have this on my calendar. I follow this report every year.
What are your thoughts on what "fair pay" is for a founder? And does it matter by geographical location? I know you pulled data from both San Fran and NY this time around. Do things like cost of living and other factors play into this?
I don't want to gatekeep... Saw there is also a giveaway mentioned in the post below, so wanted to make sure others see it:
Two founders will receive 1-hour pitch deck review sessions with me.
One lucky founder will get a full year of Pilot services - That’s bookkeeping & help from our CFO services team free of charge, worth $80K.
Once you type “ENTER” someone from my team will DM you to get your email address and company website and I’ll follow up over email with the winners.
2025 Founder Salary Report: https://pilot.com/report/founder-salary-2025
Lancepilot
This is such a refreshing and important conversation, Waseem ,thanks for leading it. Founder compensation always feels like this hidden, taboo topic, yet it directly impacts the health and sustainability of startups. Loved the insights in the report, especially the AI founder trends Excited to dive deeper into the AMA.