I mean, sure. He cut his salary - but he still owns the company, and I'm sure his equity stake in the company is worth a loooooot more as a result of all this. Let's not paint this as some huge, noble sacrifice.
Was this an obvious consequence at the time? I think he took a big risk and it paid off. Props to him! It could have just as easily tanked his company as a result of an economic downturn.
sure but don't you have to first sell it for it to be worth anything? if on a weekly basis he's making much much less, (if you had read the article), he would need to be doing other things to afford his life, which seems to be the case. he was airbnb'ing his apartment for side cash.
If you own a company, you keep whatever profit remains after expenses. Your salary can be $70k but your monthly or quarterly owner distribution can be much, much more.
And according to the comment above, he was salaried at over $1 million/year before that. Two years of that alone allows someone to retire 20 years early or easily have 5+ years of solo runway for another startup idea.
