From my own experience, it was naivety and manipulation. I trusted the founder when he would make big promises for the future. He didn't bring up equity until

From my own experience, it was naivety and manipulation. I trusted the founder when he would make big promises for the future. He didn't bring up equity until the last moment once we already were ready to quit and join. In hindsight these are clearly common business tactics (get the person to accept before going into details), but as a young engineer I had more trust in older more experienced folks like the founder. Even when there were huge alarm bells ringing in my head, I said yes. It's hard to describe how a good salesman can have you saying yes to things you aren't comfortable with. In the end the company crashed and burned after losing all it's founding team who all work at top companies now.