"The founders are taking all the risk" No, they're not. One could just as easily work at a stable job. Instead, they're taking a bet on the founders' vision.

"The founders are taking all the risk" No, they're not. One could just as easily work at a stable job. Instead, they're taking a bet on the founders' vision. "getting slammed by investors" That's their job. They need to grow up. As an engineer, we get slammed by other engineers. Criticism is a good and necessary thing. "probably have put in more hours and more capital than you ever will" Capital yes. Hours is debatable. Early stage employees can surpass the hours a founder is putting in. "Zoom out a bit and their chances of failing" As are yours then as an early employee. I think the line of risk and effort between founders and early employees is slim...and the tilt of rewards is heavily slanted towards the founders. That being said, it largely makes sense as they founders have done (typically) a lot of proof of concept work as well as handling a lot of the dirty work (HR, initial sales, fundraising, etc.).