Outside of cofounders and founding employees (who, by definition, joined before the company was funded and worth more), the total employee option pool might be

Outside of cofounders and founding employees (who, by definition, joined before the company was funded and worth more), the total employee option pool might be around 5% of the company in an early startup. Note that it will grow in later rounds, but dilution will reduce the share of early employees in those rounds. If you hire 100 employees and split that 5% equally then you get 0.05% per employee. What else would you propose? If you tried to give everyone something like 0.5% then the first 100 employees would have to own 50% of the company. Doesn’t really work. The earliest employees who join when company size is less than 10 people or so, as well as key early hires like valuable VPs will end up with higher equity, but once a company reaches a point of paying market rate compensation then a 0.05% equity stake isn't really unfair.