This article is bound to get critiqued for its morality-based reasoning. While I agree with that, it'll be hard to get anyone to agree, especially founders who

This article is bound to get critiqued for its morality-based reasoning. While I agree with that, it'll be hard to get anyone to agree, especially founders who by definition believe in (one definition of) meritocracy. But there is, I believe, also a business case for it, especially if the employees' equity comes, at least partially, from the VC's share: Diverse ownership may result in better decision-making, it makes you less dependant on one or a few large stakeholders, and can make unfriendly takeovers harder. It's obviously a great motivational tool and inspires loyalty. Most startups fail, so it's not completely unlikely that you'll end up working for one of your employees' startup next year, and people tend to have good memories. In as far as such a model could reduce income inequality across societies, you're also helping to alleviate all the problems associated with that. Inequality has been shown to correlate with crime, political instability, and a few other things that founders would try to avoid even if only interested in their own well-being. (This isn't a perfect fit for tec startups in the US where salaries are already quite high, but as mentioned in the article, there are countries where unpaid internships are a mainstay for startups).