Employees sometimes take big risks too - I have (naively) given up over $100k&#x2F;year opportunities on top of salary working at startups, including 60-80 hour work weeks for a year in the trenches coding, and have had nothing to show for it, also being offered a pittance of 0.225% of stock (or similar at other startups). In my case, I probably have given up $200k-250k&#x2F;year in opportunities in the past 1 1&#x2F;2 years working at startups, although the past half year was by choice by turning down some high offers for a role that more aligned with my current lifestyle.<p>Now I know better as a software engineer to avoid immature companies like the plague unless they&#x27;re willing to pay very close to market value. That stock is worth zilch with the way the VC investment game is typically played currently, and founders are fully willing to abuse the naive assumption by those in the trenches that employees will come to riches by working hard and overcoming bad executive&#x2F;management decisions to save the day.<p>Founders need to be more honest about employee compensation and more willing to compensate more in line with the market if they want true talent. A $160k-180k offer (or typically less at many cheap startups - a YC company tried to go low with a $120k offer in SF within the past year) with uncertain value of stock doesn&#x27;t really compare favorably to $250k base + performance bonuses + stock options at a Google or Facebook (or $375k cash&#x2F;immediately vested stock from Netflix, or in one case I turned down, $170k base + various bonuses for typically $350k-400k compensation). The terms are very unfavorable to employees currently, especially the highly skilled ones, who are also more likely to be savvy.