Go to thisweekinstartups.com and scroll down to find the Startup Basics button.

Felix Dennis was crystal clear in his book How To Get Rich that giving up equity was crazy. I agree with him.

If, and only if, a co-founder can strongly impact the growth and effectiveness of the business...then I might consider it. Otherwise, pay bonuses or revenue share.

In the VC world, many idea creators have been taken out by venture capitalists because of the contract they signed. Eyes alight with the funding capital, the founders signed the VC agreement and ignored a clause. The clause said if certain performance figures were not met at specific times, equity defaulted to the funder. The startup did not grow as expected and the targets were not met. After a time, the VC firm owned the startup and the founders discovered themselves either ejected from the business or having become employees.

An IPO is a different animal. Again I recommend the Felix Dennis book as he describes his foray into that world and how ridiculous and constraining it was.