In order for equity to be worth it for employees at a Startup you need to be within the first 10 people and the company needs to be north of the $500,000,000 range.

To illustrate, give the best odds. You join within the first 10 people, get 0.7%, after 6 years of dilution you might be down to ~0.2%.

If a company runs a tender offer with a valuation of $200m, your stock is $400,000. Is that a lot? Well considering you probably make 50k-100k less per year in salary at a startup vs a "big company", for 6 years time and considering that you also get other compensation at a big company, that isn't really that rewarding.

Now at $500m, your stock is worth $1m. Its now something worth 6 years of paycuts.

But this is such a narrow window. You have to get lucky to be one of the first 10 and join a company that will be worth half a billion dollars.

If you are not one of the first 10, you need the company to be worth ~$5billion to have your stock be worth it. How many of those are out there?