"There was a time that engineers were willing to trade years of their lives for the lottery ticket of stock options. I find that, as more companies try this app

"There was a time that engineers were willing to trade years of their lives for the lottery ticket of stock options. I find that, as more companies try this approach, and it becomes more common, more engineers are becoming literate as to the downsides. More bluntly: more people are starting to understand that stock options are frequently worthless." What's interesting here is not the engineers becoming wise to the poor value proposition, but rather, the market's failure to respond with alternatives. In some cases, there is an inability to pay (e.g. "startup X cannot match FAANG company Y"). But in many others, perhaps the optimism of the person making the equity offer is blinding?