Mailchimp was also super "artsy" (they hire artists to do murals), and my friends talked about how cool the founders were. This played the biggest role, I think. They had a mythos.
There were no lies. The employees werent offered equity that ended up being worth nothing. They got job offers that stipulated X cash with no equity, and they willingly and knowingly accepted those offers, and they got compensated as promised. I fail to see how MailChimp is at fault here.
The fact that there is Microsoft/Google/etc. and tons of other companies in the vicinity that pay way more, and grandparent poster’s friends still were staying there despite the poster’s urging and advertising, tells more about those friends than Mailchimp.
Taking a known cash component with no equity, especially since this is already known and in the open is well established as the safe, "smart" move.
Then you see this hullaballoo about not winning the lottery.
1. Someone chooses not to have equity because they want more cash now, don’t want to risk part of their compensation on equity, etc.
2. The company says their equity will never be liquid so you definitely don’t want it. You accept a cash offer with profit sharing instead. Then they sell the shares for $12 billion leaving you unknown job security and low expected future compensation while they profit off their lies
This usually is a huge red flag. If one of my friends would try to regularly recruit me into their startup I would be very suspicious if the company was on solid ground or if my friend is just desperate and trying to get someone else into the bad deal they found themselves in so they don't have to deal with it alone.
Now, this tier of friend is very close to 'acquaintance' but I think there are plenty of people for whom the boundary of 'being a friend' includes these kinds of acquaintance.