I think when you are saying &quot;early&quot; employees are getting screwed you have to be really specific.  Joining Box etc. a few months before an IPO is not an early employee.  You&#x27;re joining at a point where the company is pretty thoroughly derisked, so you&#x27;re taking very little personal risk yourself.  You&#x27;re probably not taking a pay cut (may even be getting a raise).  So yeah: don&#x27;t join a company 6 years in, get your ~10k shares with a price of $12 and a projected IPO price of $16 and expect to get rich.