I've been very lucky to have received equity from three different startups (as an early employee, not as a founder). In each case the company went public or was acquired by a public company. In each case my equity was meaningful in comparison to the salary I received.
IMO there's exactly one key to my good fortune: the company founders made the decision to be generous with the amount of stock/options they granted. They weren't trying to lowball people.
That's the bottom line, you need founders who want to "do the right thing" for their employees. Unfortunately I don't know how you (without doing a lot of due-diligence by asking around) join a company with "honest" founders. It's almost axiomatic that startups try to screw "the little people" out of any stock rewards, even if the company is successful. I was lucky.
IMO there's exactly one key to my good fortune: the company founders made the decision to be generous with the amount of stock/options they granted. They weren't trying to lowball people.
That's the bottom line, you need founders who want to "do the right thing" for their employees. Unfortunately I don't know how you (without doing a lot of due-diligence by asking around) join a company with "honest" founders. It's almost axiomatic that startups try to screw "the little people" out of any stock rewards, even if the company is successful. I was lucky.