I think there might be an even bigger problem — many employees don't understand the basics of stock options, hence they don't value equity as much as employers

I think there might be an even bigger problem — many employees don't understand the basics of stock options, hence they don't value equity as much as employers / investors do. That, and for the fact that their holdings percentage-wise are, in the vast majority of cases, typically negligible. Or even if they might potentially, in theory, be worth something, almost no one has time to investigate the company's business fundamentals to a sufficient degree to determine what chance they actually have of panning out, and hence, whether it's even remotely worth the risk. Anyway, it's definitely not just you, it's a lot of people. The HN search engine (hn.algolia.com) is really quite good; in addition to the links others will be posting here, try some targeted keyword searches, and to read as many articles as you can on the subject. While they may not be all tailored to your specific situation, gradually the general subject will become less opaque.