First, I think this whole article was filled with useless advice. The only useful thing would be to talk about giving people better compensation. Maybe it wasn'

First, I think this whole article was filled with useless advice. The only useful thing would be to talk about giving people better compensation. Maybe it wasn't obvious that I was thinking about equity+salary when I said "money". Startups have equity. Equity is a financial instrument. Equity would definitely be considered in any compensation package. My experience is that startups are extremely stingy with equity. I honestly was shocked back when I first learned how little equity was given to engineers in general. So I disagree with your statement that it would be useless advice, if you also extend it to giving more meaningful equity to employees. Also, I've had salary offers from startups that matched offers from the big software giants. Startups have money they just have to decide how to allocate it. If they need engineers and they are having trouble hiring, they probably will have to offer a higher salary or lower their talent expectations. Or just keep the same plan and hope to get lucky.