"It’s unfair" ... I empathize, but it's a voluntary market, so clearly people think it is worthwhile. The article misses a few details that explain some of th

"It’s unfair" ... I empathize, but it's a voluntary market, so clearly people think it is worthwhile. The article misses a few details that explain some of the difference. Founders have a lot of responsibility beyond engineering. E.g. they need to raise funds, hire, and go through 20 years of stress in 12 months to make sure the business gets off the ground. They often do not take a salary to make it work out, etc. A common ratio is ~10% first 10 employees, 10% next 100, 10% next 1000. If the investors take ~30%, and 30% is going to employee equity, then that leaves (with some wiggle room) 30% for founders. It is entirely fair to say that the first 10 engineers take on a huge risk, and deserve more than 1%, but you very quickly run out of company to hand out. For a good founder, it is not worth the loss of family time, stress, and opportunity cost to exit with ~5% equity.