One of the top comments on the YouTube video attached to the article talks about how someone wasted their 20s working as the founding engineer (employee #6 of a 6-person startup) and when the company exited for $100 MM, they only got 100k and are still working at 40 years of age while the other 5, presumably having cofounder-level equity, are retired.
This is the true risk of startups, and, if you're looking to maximize your earnings, it's best to either join a big tech company or start your own startup owning most of the equity, perhaps as a side hustle while you grow it enough to be profitable.
But getting "founding engineer" level equity on the order of 0.5% (before dilution!) seems to basically be a scam, where you're working 2x the amount for lower salaries than the market, all while having some nebulous carrot dangling in front of you for a reward that may never come, most likely, or even if it does, the value is so small as to not make up even on a per-hour basis the amount you spent working at the startup.
This is the true risk of startups, and, if you're looking to maximize your earnings, it's best to either join a big tech company or start your own startup owning most of the equity, perhaps as a side hustle while you grow it enough to be profitable.
But getting "founding engineer" level equity on the order of 0.5% (before dilution!) seems to basically be a scam, where you're working 2x the amount for lower salaries than the market, all while having some nebulous carrot dangling in front of you for a reward that may never come, most likely, or even if it does, the value is so small as to not make up even on a per-hour basis the amount you spent working at the startup.