You&#x27;re exaggerating for dramatic effect.  First of all, 1-2% is not uncommon for truly early employees.  Second, it&#x27;s quite typical for founders to work for free for a significant length of time to get the company off the ground.  If the founders got the company to a 200M valuation with money in the bank to pay salaries, explain to me why employees deserve to be in the same order of magnitude shareholders as founders?