We document new facts on the evolution of founder-CEO compensation in venture capital-backed startups. Having a tangible product ("product market fit") is a fundamental milestone in CEOs' compensation, marking the point where liquid cash compensation increases significantly -- well before an IPO...

We exploit a mortgage reform that differentially unlocked home equity across the Danish population and study how this impacted selection into entrepreneurship. We find that increased entry was concentrated among entrepreneurs whose firms were founded in industries where they had no prior work...