The premise of the article seems to say that if you get your pay in stock options then you should pay less tax than if you get it in salary. I don't see why th

The premise of the article seems to say that if you get your pay in stock options then you should pay less tax than if you get it in salary. I don't see why there needs to be any difference. In my experience of UK startups, the decisive difference with the US counterparts was simply the amount of money that could be raised on the back of essentially the same company - as much as 10 times in the US. Having 10x the money in the bank is a massive advantage. The US markets are also better at recycling assets if companies fail. None of this requires employees to dodge tax.