Ask HN: Am I being taken advantage of by my company?

I’m was hired as employee #1 at a startup with a handful of cofounders about 1 year ago. I agreed to a salary at half my market rate, in exchange for stock options totalling 5.5% after 4 years. I felt like this was a fair deal at the time.

One year later, we’ve grown significantly. We have 20 employees, 10 of whom I manage as the director of engineering. We’ve also done some pre-seed fundraising, which I learned has diluted my options to about 1.1%.

There is also way more travel expected of me than I anticipated. For example, I’ll have to be away from my family for almost two months this spring, leaving my partner to take care of our two young children on her own (during a pandemic and while also working full time). No break days, working sunrise to sunset every day, sharing hotel rooms.

My mental health has taken a nosedive because of the stress of the job and the dread of the travel. A lot of that mental health stuff is of course on me to resolve, but the pressures of this job aren’t helping.

Is this normal? Is this just part of startup life? Does it sound like I’m being taken advantage of? I have so little human contact these days it’s hard to get perspective!