Well, no. Most of those companies have special terms which end up screwing most employees out of any upside. That goes anything from shares people can't exercis

Well, no. Most of those companies have special terms which end up screwing most employees out of any upside. That goes anything from shares people can't exercise without a 10-year commitment to tiers of options, to simply offering 0.0000001% of the company, to many others. Equity is worth $0 unless the company is fully transparent on this stuff. I've never run into one which was.