Thank you everyone for your views.  They confirm what I think I&#x27;ve known for a while, I just needed some experienced perspective to validate these thoughts.  I think what&#x27;s made me re-think many times is that I&#x27;m surrounded by 5 other people in this company, all of whom are about 10 years older than me except one, and they seem more than eager to step up and offer this guy their near full time allegiance unquestioningly.  It makes me pause and say &quot;am I not seeing something here?  Am I just naturally more distrusting than these other guys I started with?&quot;  So I&#x27;ve slowed down and quadruple re-thought every time I was ready to walk, trying to see it from a different angle.  Still, the nagging discomfort remains.  Glad to know I&#x27;m not too off base.<p>Update: yesterday, CEO tells me he will offer the guy who started 2 weeks ago the same equity I have, because he&#x27;s done &quot;such a good job&quot;.  He has been kicking it hard, it&#x27;s true, and he does really well, but he&#x27;s fresh, and the CEO&#x27;s perspective is so skewed based on what&#x27;s bright and shiny in front of him at the moment that he totally disregards the contribution of people working for him 7 months for free who got him to where he&#x27;s at now.<p>The sad part is I think he knows this damn well, and his strategy well may be to operate a company on a string of trusting people who he will continue to cycle in as the disenchanted ones before them leave.