Hot Take: 100% Of A Grape Is Better Than 10% Of A Watermelon (I will not promote)
In the business / entrepreneurial world, there is a popular saying
"10% of a watermelon is better than 100% of a grape"
This is usually said to people who are scared of giving up equity in their business.
"if someone can 10x your profits, it's worth it to lose some equity" is the message.
While this saying is good in spirit, it doesn't take into account 2 very important things.
When you lose majority share, you can literally be kicked out of your own company. At that point your equity amount is mostly irrelevant. Especially if you have some sort of passion.
In order to have a meaningful amount of profit, you have to have a decent amount of equty.
Let's say (for example), you have a 100M dollar exit, which is very good. The top percentile of businesses.
20% means your take home is 20M (pre tax)
0.5% means your take home is 500K (pre tax).
Which is decent income, but not nearly as appealing. And keep in mind that this is for a huge amount of a 100M dollar exit.
I could go on and on with more bullet points, but let me know your thoughts