Great article on the dangers of hiring "unpaid interns". Besides not being "fair" - it's also illegal. Employers should not be asking their employees to work for less than minimum wage if they are producing valuable work product for them.

About the only safe thing is to have interns shadow an employee to watch them work. You could also offer them training, and have them work on independent projects that are non-commercial.

Any non-founder employee at a startup also needs to be paid at least minimum wage (though this may be able to be paid in equity - check with your lawyer).

Quoted: "All it takes is one disgruntled intern, or their parent or spouse or friend, to call the U.S. Department of Labor, and the company who follows this type of exploitative advice is toast,"