Yes, we care a lot about making employee equity more generous and more fair. Part of our YC curriculum now is teaching founders about these issues and encouraging them to follow best practices around being generous and transparent with employees about equity compensation like Sam discussed in his blog post.
I think there is still a lot more we can do, though.
Speaking as a bigco eng who would love to join a startup, but is disillusioned by the economics of it.
If recruiters explained that yes, we don't actually shaft you in their message, I might actually take a look.
My impression is that the one thing that will make a significant change in this is that private shares are liquid in secondary markets like Forge or Sharespost. It would be revolutionary to also valuate companies from the perspective of employees, being able to pick winners and negotiate more stock from the not-so-winners, where stock is worth less.
I would be happy to spend an hour on a call with you and provide my very humble suggestions, if you're up for it. My HN username at gmail.
Edit: of course we can do this over email, too. I just feel that in the year of Covid, you don't throw away an opportunity for a warmer human connection.