Are founding engineers not also taking on risk? They're typically taking a much lower salary in exchange for their shares. They're avoiding vacations, nice cars

Are founding engineers not also taking on risk? They're typically taking a much lower salary in exchange for their shares. They're avoiding vacations, nice cars, fancy houses, and other expenses that they could purchase if they worked for a larger, public company. In the example from the article WeWork founding engineers would've gone 9 years without seeing any value from their shares while the CEO was cashing out billions. The difference in responsibilities is already accounted for in their disparate salaries and ownership stakes. I don't think it's very relevant to whether or not they should have the option of cashing out some of their stake during funding rounds.