It's one of those silver lining things. You end up doing your own start-up instead, which is usually what you preferred anyway.
I wonder how many top developers are vanishing from the workforce because their start-up succeeded. A year or three of hard work and then retirement.
Or they end up owning/running some other business, where they aren't using their most highly developed skill, programming.
They could also deal with learning that if top hackers wanted to work for mostly equity, they'd be doing their own thing and taking 100%
I'm not saying that equity compensation isn't worth considering, just that for every startup that flips and pays out a nice chunk, there are plenty that don't.
Seriously. The amount of degree snobbery in these startups founded by Stanford (and other top-level school) graduates is ridiculous. They are turning down tons of great developers everyday, most likely.