While I agree that employees should get more equity and liquidity, I think it comes down to supply and demand: - If the founders are de-risking appropriately i

While I agree that employees should get more equity and liquidity, I think it comes down to supply and demand: - If the founders are de-risking appropriately it will take years of no pay/low pay work before they can even consider taking on employees. Building a valuable asset is not done overnight and takes extreme commitment - plus reputational & financial risk, opportunity costs etc. - It's very rare for companies to get past the Series B stage. When they do, the founders have accumulated non trivial and non replicable knowledge about the market and the customers. The liquidity they get should be worth much more down the road. Now of course if you are an early employee that is expected to 'make the startup work' like a founder and get none of the benefits there's a problem. On the other hand employees are replaceable & 'swappable' in a way that founders are not.