If I write a book, I'm not giving my web designer a percentage of the profit. Yes, my success is contingent on the quality of his work, but he's just one of many offering such a service.
I understand what you are saying, but there is something extra you are doing as employee #1. You're taking a huge risk not working for Cisco, Oracle, Google, etc...any of the players you know won't cease to exist overnight. The equity is offered because a skilled employee is taking a risk on you(the founder), and investing his time that could be better spent at an established company. That's how I view it at least - if you offer me equity at your FaceAppInGram startup, plus the salary I would expect from other fortune 500 offers - I might be tempted to work for you. Otherwise, there is no sane reason any engineer worth their salt would take the risk.
edit: typo
No, this is not risk. This is opportunity cost.
When referring to finance or economics, risk describes
the possibility that an investment's actual and projected
returns are different and that some or all of the
principle is lost as a result. Opportunity cost concerns
the possibility that the returns of a chosen investment
are lower than the returns of a necessarily forgone
investment.
A VC can lose their cash money investment in StartUpCo. That's risk. An engineer choosing between StartUpCo and Cisco faces a choice between two opportunities. The cost of choosing one opportunity is the other. That's an opportunity cost.
Given a choice between two alternatives, one with high variance and low median return, and another with low variance and high median return, it is perfectly sensible to use the English language (as opposed to investment jargon) term 'riskier' to describe the first alternative, if maximizing return is the goal.
While you could still lose your job at a big company, they are generally more stable with billions in the bank.
Hmm. I hadn't thought of it that way. Thenagain, from what I've heard, A players don't hang around any particular company for more than 3 years since they are always looking to bump their paygrade. And despite what startups may ask for in job ads, they are not exclusively hiring superstar code ninja warriors.
Total salary/benefits at GoogFaceSoft comes out to almost twice as much(seriously) as you'd make at the average SF startup.
It is fine to argue that you should demand fair pat, as long as you realize that you are basically saying that everyone should only work at Google or facebook or Uber.
The reason employees are commodities is that they allow themselves to be treated as such.