&quot;Next, you would need to understand that equity compensation is almost the only difference between an SV startup and pretty much every other type of company (I do).&quot;<p>Except that is completely false. When I worked at Western Digital, which is decidedly NOT a startup, they still gave me plenty of stock. Amazon, which is also decidedly NOT a startup also gives out lots of stock. So your differentiator is not really a differentiator.