But then why do it in the first place? If you want to have the optionality to constantly plan, reassess, and communicate why would you bind yourself into a legal agreement that limits your ability to do that?
I always felt like I should want to get married and that I should want kids, but I just... don't. The desire just isn't there. I'm 29 and have been with my partner for long enough that marriage and likely kids are now the next stops on the what you're supposed to do in life train.
And I guess it's not that I actively don't want it. I just don't feel an inclination toward or away from it. There's just kind of an absent feeling about it... There's not anything internal making me want it (there is external pressure from my partner though who does want to get married and from society who expects us to get married).
Does this feeling change? Or am I just weird? Or should I just do it anyway?
> planning with both of your current and future states in mind
This is what is so difficult about marriage. You sign up for a lifetime commitment, but no one plans their life 100% in advance. People change, desires change, realities change.
But, as "First Engineer", you get maybe 1/25th or 1/50th the equity of a founder, and you might join 3 months after the company's "founding" pre-product / pre-product market fit. The company might pivot substantially 5 times before finding fit, or might not find fit at all, or it might take 10 years to see any benefit in the 1% of cases where the company does make it.
I'm not disagreeing with your comment, but if the reason you join is to work on hard problems with passionate people then there ought to be a strong reason why it makes sense to be engineer #1 and not yourself a founder.