About
Founder, Pilot.com — accounting, tax prep, and CFO services for startups, backed by Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and others. Previously founded Ksplice (acquired by Oracle) and Zulip (acquired by Dropbox).
Work
Founder & Leadership at Pilot
Maker History
PilotPilot does your books. You do your business.
Forums
Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.
Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:
Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year
AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)
Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%
Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)
We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.
Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.
Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:
Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year
AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)
Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%
Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)
We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.
Founder Salary Confessions: How Much Should You Pay Yourself? AMA with 3x Founder Waseem Daher
Hey Product Hunt! I'm Waseem Daher, co-founder of Pilot, the largest startup-focused accounting company in the US. I'm a 3x founder (my previous ventures were acquired by Oracle and Dropbox) who's raised over $120M from Sequoia, Stripe, Jeff Bezos, and more.
Today we're releasing our 2025 Founder Salary Report with data from 1,800+ founders, and the findings might surprise you:
Founder salaries dropped 43% in the past year
AI founders are bucking the trend (paying themselves more)
Bootstrapped companies jumped 57%
Only 5.4% of founders pay themselves nothing (down from 9% last year)
We founders talk endlessly about burn rates, runway, and valuations but no one talks about what they pay themselves. It's time to change that.