The rewards game for first employees is perplexing. You have an order of magnitude less incentive than the founders who birthed the thing. Arguably, that's taken care of: you're on a real salary while they're making peanuts. You're also capable of moving to a new job tomorrow, while this is the founders' life.

But when an acquihire with retention bonus is almost equivalent in net payout to you as a successful acquisition or IPO might be, it is difficult to be super-invested instead of merely daydreaming and working toward starting your own company. At best you can hope to be flush from a quick and healthy payout, which might pay off student loans or capitalize the first steps of your own risky venture.

Is the game of Silicon Valley just to structurally encourage everyone to eventually devote their time to fully creating their own pet technologies and products? Who works for anyone else except for fools and transients?

(I'm currently a fool or transient.)