I think this article is missing a fundamental truth about life, and its conclusions are distorted because of that:<p><i>You have to respect risk</i>.  And ideally research it, quantify it, and manage it.  The one thing you cannot do is ignore it.<p>Joining a startup is risky.  Founding a startup is even more risky.  Taking stock options instead of salary shifts more of that risk onto you, as an employee.  You need to be aware of this risk, and in that regard, all of these articles about employee equity are performing a very valuable service.<p>But you <i>also</i> have to view them in the context of the whole other portfolio of risks you are taking in your life.  The article, for example, says that the chance of rain on the 1st and 15th is 100%.  This is flatly untrue, as any former employee of DEC, Sun, IBM, HP, Yahoo, Tandem, Stratus, Symbolics, or other formerly-highflying tech companies can attest.  It is a guarantee that you <i>will</i> get screwed over sometime in your working life, and the best response to that is to learn from it and minimize the chance of it happening in the future, or at least maximize the returns from when you <i>don&#x27;t</i> get screwed over to buffer your total returns.