Hi all! So, I know this there isn’t a set rule for equity spilts and there are best practices such as YC suggesting equal split, but people I look up to (that have experience in this) that I’ve spoken to have strong opinions… especially the lawyers lol. What are your two cents for what the equity split should be for the following scenarios?

Side note before you answer- This is relevant to me at the moment since I’ve done numerous engineering interviews and so far most all except 1 (our personalities did not vibe) have offered to build the project and are actively pursuing me to be a part of the project.

And not to sound conceited, but I assume this startup only works if me or someone like me is involved since the industry I’m in is so closed off and hard to build trust in. But again I don’t want to straight up offend people with the equity splits I propose.

Another side note is I met all of these people via YC match. I reached out. And I do trust the lawyers but I guess I’m just making sure they aren’t being overly kind to me since I know them and work with them and make them money lol.

Ok here it goes:

Two founder team:

Founder 1 - ceo, person with the idea and the vision for the direction of the company. 15+ years domain experience in an almost impossible industry to break into. Has the right network with the top people in the industry & relationships with users. Deep knowledge of the issue. Also providing small seed funding (30k). Plus has a list of users ready to onboard once built, Figma with the design and user flow, all associated features listed and prioritized. Also has connections with funding for later raises.

Founder 2 - cto, creating the code and / or licensing parts of the build for efficiency, domain expertise in building app features at larger tech companies

Three founder team:

Founder 1 - CEO same as above

Founder 2 - co cto or founding engineer

Founder 3 - co cto or founding engineer, another engineer that fills in gaps of expertise for above engineer