I definitely agree that 50/50 is nowhere near a hard and fast rule. The split depends on how long the company has been around, how much progress has already been made, etc.
The larger point I was trying to get across is the discrepancy between the amount of value many businessy types ascribe to technical skills and the actual value (at least from my perspective).
If the only progress you've made on your company is the initial idea, I really do believe that the you'll up your chances of success significantly if the split is close to 50/50. The odds that you're even going to end up succeeding with the same idea is pretty low. At that stage, you really want to build a team of equals, not get employees.
I think the problem is extrapolating from simple examples used to illustrate thing.
eg Rich Dad or similar: You have an idea for a company. You create the company and deposit $10k in it's account. You bring on a programmer to build the project paying him in equity. The company could be worth $100m in a few years, so his 10% is better than a salary.
I'm sure parallel toy ideas exist in people's minds about investors. If someone puts $1m into a company that's still mostly an idea and a prototype, it doesn't seem all that far fetched that the investor would expect to basically own the company. What have the founders contributed? An idea and 6 month work. What has the investor contributed? $1m.
In the absence of actual experience, people develop biases based one imagined experiences where they are the hero. I don't mean that in a bad way. Everyone does it. It's hard to see an outside perspective unless you encounter it.
The larger point I was trying to get across is the discrepancy between the amount of value many businessy types ascribe to technical skills and the actual value (at least from my perspective).
If the only progress you've made on your company is the initial idea, I really do believe that the you'll up your chances of success significantly if the split is close to 50/50. The odds that you're even going to end up succeeding with the same idea is pretty low. At that stage, you really want to build a team of equals, not get employees.