GitHub's first employee owns more than 1% of the company, so I'm not sure why it's unrealistic. Maybe in the world of businesses letting VC's tell them how to run their company this is the norm, but it doesn't have to be.
Wow. I was secretly trying to get you to find an answer to one of Keith Rabois questions on quora. I forgot he qualified it as post 1999. Can you do that too?
National Instruments is an amazing company...I was fortunate to get to use their products on some projects as a teenager.
The first few hires often happen before VC funding is raised, right? And 2-3% for the first few employees isn't unusual amongst companies that later raise VC funding and make it big.