I still don't get why it's a bad idea to forgo salary in a venture where you retain majority ownership. It sure seems like there are loads and loads of people who spun up successful businesses on sweat equity. Way more than have ever taken funding.
If it's not a capital intensive business and your cost of living is low, why on earth wouldn't you minimize investors to the extent possible? If you've got $300k in savings and cheap digs, your percentage ownership of the upside is the concern, not getting a check for $3k every month.
We're talking past each other, I think. I don't have any problem with bootstrapping (as my biography probably makes pretty clear) and understand that, under many business models, bootstrappers will go cash-flow negative early on. Not a problem.
At a funded startup, though, you've already committed to "We either grow big or fail ingloriously." If your personal paycheck is the difference between solvency and insolvency, you've already failed ingloriously. That's fine and expected, but don't put your family's financial situation at further risk by deferring the paycheck for the final few months.
There were a lot of "ifs" in that comment. Unlikely he has 300k in savings, if he did he wouldn't be scared. Also unlikely his cost of living is low if he lives anywhere near the valley and has a wife and/or kids.
If you have tons of money in the bank and have a really low cost of living, and your business isn't capital intensive, sure you can skip a few paychecks. Even then, the small salary you are taking likely isn't meaningfully impacting the startups runway. Maybe extend it just slightly. And as you are doing it you are lowering your own savings and personal "runway".
If it's not a capital intensive business and your cost of living is low, why on earth wouldn't you minimize investors to the extent possible? If you've got $300k in savings and cheap digs, your percentage ownership of the upside is the concern, not getting a check for $3k every month.