As an individual negotiating compensation with a company, you are at a structural disadvantage: the company does this all the time, and (lacking a union to negotiate on your behalf) you do this rarely.
Unless you are an elite negotiator (and if you can hire a lawyer you are elite already), the complexity of any compensation package works in the company's favor.
For almost all of us, equity is a vehicle to get screwed over. Articles like this one only to serve to perpetuate startup mythology and inflate false hopes.
Theoretically, a startup that actually wants to compete on compensation by sharing in good fortune could craft an equity package which is simple and standardized enough to be comprehensible by ordinary humans. But so long as employees keep snapping at the vaporous bait of deceptive equity packages, there's not much incentive to do so.
Unless you are an elite negotiator (and if you can hire a lawyer you are elite already), the complexity of any compensation package works in the company's favor.
For almost all of us, equity is a vehicle to get screwed over. Articles like this one only to serve to perpetuate startup mythology and inflate false hopes.
Theoretically, a startup that actually wants to compete on compensation by sharing in good fortune could craft an equity package which is simple and standardized enough to be comprehensible by ordinary humans. But so long as employees keep snapping at the vaporous bait of deceptive equity packages, there's not much incentive to do so.