> Everyone wants equity. Lots if not all employees feel like the deserve it, even the person who answers the phone and could be most easily replaced.
This is not a moral question of who deserves what. Compensation is a business issue, not a moral one.
The question is whether OP is getting as much as he could get elsewhere, and the answer is likely "no".
If startups could compete fair and square with non-startup comp, employees like OP wouldn't be discovering that their equity stake is tiny and they are therefore underpaid after 5 years of working for the same startups every day.
> Put yourself in the shoes of the owner who took risk up front.
Why should he? Is this "would-be millionaires sympathy hour"? You're saying the founder took more risk. Maybe he did. That's actually not always the case, when you factor in opportunity cost for a non-technical founder vs an engineer - I've seen founders earn as much as they would elsewhere in base salary, without factoring their enormous equity at all.
But even if the founder took more risk, how does that compel OP to work hard to make him a millionaire, while foregoing fair market compensation for himself?
You are implying it's OP's moral duty to compensate the founder for the supposed risk he may (or may not) have taken.
OP's only duty is to do what's best for himself. The founder and investors are certainly doing that by making OP work weekends for what is likely below-market comp.
Nowhere did I suggest any compulsion or moral duty. In fact, I wrote the opposite, namely that employees may walk away at any time.
The point of looking at it from the owner’s perspective is to elevate thinking above “It’s so unfair! Harumph!” that is so often the case. As you wrote in your reply, it’s a business decision. Imagining oneself as the owner makes this plain.
This is not a moral question of who deserves what. Compensation is a business issue, not a moral one.
The question is whether OP is getting as much as he could get elsewhere, and the answer is likely "no".
If startups could compete fair and square with non-startup comp, employees like OP wouldn't be discovering that their equity stake is tiny and they are therefore underpaid after 5 years of working for the same startups every day.
> Put yourself in the shoes of the owner who took risk up front.
Why should he? Is this "would-be millionaires sympathy hour"? You're saying the founder took more risk. Maybe he did. That's actually not always the case, when you factor in opportunity cost for a non-technical founder vs an engineer - I've seen founders earn as much as they would elsewhere in base salary, without factoring their enormous equity at all.
But even if the founder took more risk, how does that compel OP to work hard to make him a millionaire, while foregoing fair market compensation for himself?
You are implying it's OP's moral duty to compensate the founder for the supposed risk he may (or may not) have taken.
OP's only duty is to do what's best for himself. The founder and investors are certainly doing that by making OP work weekends for what is likely below-market comp.