Like Groucho Marks, "I don't want to be a member of any club that would have me."

This is actually a good test. If you're a hacker and you proposed this to your business-person co-founder and they accept then fail them.

Many of these terms are reasonable over time but not initially and not for everyone. For example, agreeing to severance in a company that is not funded is silly (e.g. firing an employee could force bankruptcy).

I have to say that while the topic interests me, the goals here sound a bit overreaching. It's not quite clear if he means for people coming in once some of the business groundwork has begun or people coming in as co-founders, but I can't really see it working for either.

First employee: No way you're getting a board seat or that much equity. Sorry.

Co-founder: If you're going through this many hoops pre-money that seems to be overkill. If you don't trust the guys that you're co-founding with, you're probably screwed anyway. I don't mean that trust is everything, things naturally can get ugly, but most of this contract stuff is going to be re-negotiated when you're funded anyway.

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