Ehhh. A few interesting thoughts though not necessarily original, the "your equity is worth 0" mantra has been repeated enough that it's not ground-breaking.

It maybe makes sense for huge, publicly traded companies like Apple (who could easily afford to just pay their employees enough to offset the equity loss and then some), but of course there's the whole idea that equity compensation aligns incentives for employees and the business.

> “You people in tech are crazy. I pay my employees handsomely in cash and I keep all of the equity for myself.”

This would be catastrophic for the startup industry:

* Why would I ever work for a company that has huge downsides (chance of failure, lack of resources, etc.) when I don't get to enjoy any of the potential upside

* How many startups can afford to pay their employees "handsomely" (relative to what they could be earning elsewhere)?

The only way I imagine a 0-equity world working is one where VCs cough up a ton more money to compensate startup employees handsomely. And to be fair to Fred, maybe that's what he's suggesting (spending more money now to retain more equity later). But I didn't see that stated anywhere.