"Next, you would need to understand that equity compensation is almost the only difference between an SV startup and pretty much every other type of company (I

"Next, you would need to understand that equity compensation is almost the only difference between an SV startup and pretty much every other type of company (I do)." Except that is completely false. When I worked at Western Digital, which is decidedly NOT a startup, they still gave me plenty of stock. Amazon, which is also decidedly NOT a startup also gives out lots of stock. So your differentiator is not really a differentiator.