I mean, if he'd met me halfway, I probably would have taken the offer. But he didn't. He just basically told me to fuck off. I'm not really sure why he didn't expect negotiation. Maybe I negotiated badly. Sadly, if he'd been polite and said something along the lines of "We just can't afford that salary level. I'm sorry we couldn't work things out," then maybe in a year, when I'm out of a job for whatever reason, I might be willing to come back and take that offer, or at least entertain a new one. But no, he burned that bridge. Either way, I think I dodged a bullet.
But you're right. If he'd made me CTO or some other personal benefit, I would have taken the offer in a heartbeat. For a regular dev salary with regular dev equity, it just wasn't enough. Plus, I already get equity at my current publicly-traded company, which means my equity is worth actual cash. I dunno. The whole thing annoyed me.
They're a YC company and got another round of funding a few months ago, so I imagine they're still around and doing okay. The same job listings are still on their website. Not sure if they've filled any of them or not. shrug
I don't have much faith that they'll do well, but I'm not a VC for a reason, so.. :)
But you're right. If he'd made me CTO or some other personal benefit, I would have taken the offer in a heartbeat. For a regular dev salary with regular dev equity, it just wasn't enough. Plus, I already get equity at my current publicly-traded company, which means my equity is worth actual cash. I dunno. The whole thing annoyed me.