I had the very same offer. The founder made this big brouhaha about telling everyone he wanted to compensate the engineers "very well" to build his vision, and

I had the very same offer. The founder made this big brouhaha about telling everyone he wanted to compensate the engineers "very well" to build his vision, and he made a point to say the compensation would be so much better than at a typical startup. The guy had a pretty big vision for a technical product/service that would need good engineers. I nibbled the bait and found out that his "amazing compensation" was $0 salary, and 1% options! Not even shares, just regular options. Yeah, let me sign right up for the "golden" handcuffs for zero dollars. It was infuriating that a veteran startup founder would make this lowball offer to employees (not even like cofounders). I've been working in startups for twenty years, so it was astonishing bullshit to me. I'm not sure how he was able to sign anybody else on. Needless to say, that company didn't make it more than eight months. The only team he could build was really heavy on the business side, and then a couple of (obviously) incredibly inexperienced developers.