I feel like I've matured on this question over the years, so to caveat #1: 90% of options are worth nothing if you count by companies granting, but probably 90

I feel like I've matured on this question over the years, so to caveat #1: 90% of options are worth nothing if you count by companies granting, but probably 90% of options are worth something if you count by people receiving grants. How does that work? Because companies which grow and become worth something hire a metric ton of people and give all of them options. If you're of the opinion that most engineers in San Francisco work for a seed stage startup, you're just straight up not correct. It only seems that way because of availability bias. Thus the reason for this comment: it's very, very dangerous to get people in our industry thinking "options are ipso-facto worthless" when our industry builds packages for substantially all engineers where they're a material portion of one's compensation. You can find all-cash offers out there, particularly from non-tech employers of engineers, but the standard in our industry is cash plus a substantial equity component, and (as someone in the industry) you really, really need to have a deeper understanding of equity than "all equity is worth zero." Though the capitalist in me says "If one really thinks that all equity is worth zero, you will find many people willing to take yours off your hands at pennies on the dollar once that becomes feasible for your company."