Anyone else would need a seriously well written letter of recommendation from one of those people. That and be prepared to divulge everything you have at your disposal that would help the project succeed, and be ready to work side by side until I can trust that you are working harder than I am to make this work.

Or any people at all for that matter. I've made these mistakes in the past, and will never make them again. Nearly all of the people that have approached me with an equity only deal had no idea what it would take to actually build a company out of the idea in the first place. It really shows their inexperience in business. But they'll shoot in the dark until they find someone to do it. And, well, shooting in the dark is just no way to build a company. For equity only, or not. :)

Passion is an excellent point to add that I didn't really touch on. Maybe if/when I revise this I'll add that dimension to it. It really goes back to the argument that people are the absolute #1 priority when getting a startup off the ground. If all the people don't truly believe in the end goal, you'll probably never get there :-).

I also agree with your second point. I know a lot of great developers that don't necessarily make good business people. I feel that's where networking comes into play with the people argument. If your idea is solid and you can get a group of people together that all believe in it at the beginning it's one thing. This letter is more geared toward someone starting a company that doesn't have the right people at the beginning.

Equity itself is neither good nor bad. It always depends on the situation and circumstances. I have structured such deals in the past when I saw the company going places and when I had started my contract with pay. They believed in proving their viability to me and my company and that's what made the deal.

"Investing time in your goals, when they could be developing their own, comes across as a high opportunity cost with an extremely unlikely payoff." Most developers I know kick ass at development, and pretty much suck at running a business and marketing their ideas. If there is an idea, and a startup in the back of their mind, there is no guarantee that theirs will be more successful – especially without help in their weak areas.

I'm not saying that equity only deals are good or bad. I am saying that the possibility exists that you just haven't seen the right deal presented, by the right people. :)