Well, except of course that startups, like Dropbox, very often advertise to early non-exec hires that while their current pay is very low, they'll make out like bandits upon IPO or acquiring.

Then the shares of the early employees get diluted like crazy to give those sorts of very late-hires ridiculous compensation, because "they're 'executive'".

So the message is more about broken promises than it is about compensation per se.