That's a good point. When I joined a startup as the 6th person, I was a college student working part-time freelance gigs and making maybe $30k. The startup was

That's a good point. When I joined a startup as the 6th person, I was a college student working part-time freelance gigs and making maybe $30k. The startup was initially a freelance client, they offered to take me on as an employee for $40k part-time / $80k when I could work full time. They gave me some tiny amount of equity, probably less than 1%; it turned out to be worthless. But everything else was a significant improvement: I no longer had to juggle multiple clients and haggle to get paid, I got health insurance, and I had more money in my pocket.