Scam is the wrong way to look at it. Basically, it's like airlines charging you fees for overhead baggage. If you can get into a big tech company without back-w

Scam is the wrong way to look at it. Basically, it's like airlines charging you fees for overhead baggage. If you can get into a big tech company without back-weighted vesting, of course you're going to take that. The difference is on the margin. Developers who went to tier C schools, 3.X GPA, 2-sigma IQs instead of 3, they have a shot at getting into Amazon and actually making way more and getting much better equity than they would working in IT at their local HR company (<$100K salary, negligible to 0 equity) Again though, if you are capable of getting into any other FAANG, of course do it.