The founders are playing a dangerous game in this story. If key engineers don't have much reason to stick around other than it being exciting, they are likely

The founders are playing a dangerous game in this story. If key engineers don't have much reason to stick around other than it being exciting, they are likely to leave as soon as they get bored or tired. And yes, you can get bored while working 80 hour weeks. I was once in this exact position. I was the first employee and over the next few years a bunch of senior managers came in and each got 5-10x the stock I'd gotten. When the whole thing got old, I looked around and saw that I didn't have much upside potential (especially since there had been dilution), my salary was below market, and I left. What was incredible looking back is that something similar happened with a truly key engineer... someone who was recruited out of a university because he had more or less built the text mining library the company was using by himself. A product line rested on his shoulders, so he had a ton of responsibility, but when things got rough he didn't have enough reason to stick around. Added: The point is, there are good times and bad times in startups. In the good times you should look around and decide who you really need to stick around in the bad times and give out stock accordingly.