I feel like the key is 1) don’t count on your options being worth anything at all, and 2) work for savvy founders that know how to get the employees taken care

I feel like the key is 1) don’t count on your options being worth anything at all, and 2) work for savvy founders that know how to get the employees taken care of. This means never taking more money than they need, not giving away multipliers, giving non-negligible percentages to employees, and focusing on making the business actually have intrinsic value instead of letting “how much can we raise” drive their sense of value. I feel like a lot of people (founders included) buy into the idea that the VCs should be able to walk in and screw everyone out of their equity because they hold all the cards. If you work for founders that believe this, you will definitely get screwed, partially because the founders will believe screwing you is just part of the game.