Dharmesh Shah explains why HubSpot's founders and first employees all took $5,000 a month. The flat rate signaled the company wasn't chasing quick money. If someone's main concern was salary, they weren't the right fit for the startup.
I have a fun HubSpot story. So when we started on this compensation thing, and I had to pick salaries for ourselves, something more than zero. And so we picked $5,000 a month. It's a number. So when we hired employee number 3, we had to decide what we were going to pay them. $5,000. Hired employee number 4, $5,000. And so we just built this like, okay, if you're here for the salary, you're here for the wrong reason, right? That's not why you're going to join this motley crew of folks. And that lasted for like a while.
