Venture capital (VC)-backed firms play a disproportionately important role in the econ-omy in terms of innovation, job creation, and productivity growth (Kortum and Lerner2000; Puri and Zarutskie 2012). However, despite the importance of VC-backed firms andthe wealth of information about VC contracts (Hellmann 1998; Kaplan and Str ̈omberg2003; Ewens, Gorbenko, and Korteweg 2019), we know very little about thecompensationcontracts provided to founder-CEOs in private, venture capital-backed firms. READ MORE