Nearly half of 250 founders pay someone on their team more than they pay themselves.
We're still surprised people did this but... 50+ founders worth $10M to $4B reveal their personal finances. Here it is: https://joinhampton.com/mw-wr
Why do we do this? Because if you're an aspirational person or someone who runs a business and is making money, it's incredibly challenging to figure out what to do. Information is impossible to find — and that's what we put together: the net worth reveal and why we do this podcast, Moneywise.
In late August 2026, Hampton anonymously surveyed 250 founders and CEOs about what they actually take home. Founder salaries turn out to look pretty normal even when the companies don't: about $150K below $10M in revenue and about $400K at $30–50M. Fifteen founders reported a $0 salary, and six of those took at least $500K on top of it.
Daniel walks through the split between bootstrapped and venture-backed founders, where 39% of bootstrapped founders took $500K+ in additional compensation and not one venture-backed founder reported more than $300K. He covers the IRS rules that make the "tiny salary, big distributions" advice risky, the compensation that never shows up on payroll (credit card points, vehicles, real estate), and what senior teams get paid. The episode closes on why being personally broke changes the decisions you make for your company, plus a three-question exercise to check your own pay.
Also, this podcast is made by Hampton, which is a community for founders doing on average $20 million a year in revenue. We saw a lot of these money conversations happening privately behind closed doors and we thought, "What the heck, let's make it public." If you are a founder, apply here: http://joinhampton.com/mw
Timestamps:
00:00 — Founders know their revenue cold and go quiet about take-home, so Hampton asked 250 of them anonymously
00:42 — How to read the data: 296 records, 250 complete, answers in ranges, and who qualifies for Hampton
02:03 — Founder salaries stay "normal": about $150K under $10M in revenue, about $400K at $30–50M
02:25 — About 47% pay at least one functional leader more than their own base salary
03:12 — The "founder discount" research, and Josh Payne's climb from $0 to $250K before selling StackCommerce for about $80M
04:12 — 15 founders report a $0 salary, and six of them take $500K+ in additional compensation
04:50 — Bootstrapped vs. venture-backed: 39% of bootstrapped founders at $500K+, zero VC-backed founders above $300K
05:47 — What VC-backed CEOs earn by stage: "the paycheck is really only half the bet"
06:40 — Why "tiny salary, big distributions" is bad advice, and the accountant who paid himself $24K and lost to the IRS
07:55 — How a low salary caps your retirement contributions: "boring is really good when the alternative is explaining your creativity to the IRS"
08:52 — The comp nobody counts: a third of founders mention credit card points, plus vehicles and real estate
10:15 — Senior team pay: sales leaders earn the most, HR the least
10:43 — Company-wide bonuses: 5% of companies under $1M in revenue, 44% above it
11:08 — "Equity isn't a coupon code for underpaying someone," and what happens when employees see coworkers' salaries
12:35 — What are you optimizing for? "I own a lot of equity" is not the same as "I am financially secure"
13:38 — The sugarcane farmer study on money stress, and Andrew Wilkinson's case for paying yourself well early
14:43 — The exercise: add up everything you took last year, then ask three questions
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