> I would love to understand the logic here I actually don't think this is unreasonable. Even if you are employee #5, you probably didn't work on the product f

> I would love to understand the logic here I actually don't think this is unreasonable. Even if you are employee #5, you probably didn't work on the product for a couple years without paying yourself, pay 30k+ out of pocket for a patent, designers, and other initial expenses, raise the money to hire employees, etc. At most startups, even if they are successful, there still isn't enough money to make everyone super wealthy. So I think it's reasonable that the bulk of the equity goes to the folks who took the most risk, and everyone else gets a decent salary, a reasonable work week, enough equity to be worth a nice bonus if the company is sold, and ownership over whatever side projects they create. Now if the company really was started two weeks ago and you're getting paid dramatically under market then that's a completely different story, but a lot of times even the earliest employees are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.