> 2) Work for a company who you believe will have equity growth. There is a wide spectrum here between 5 person startup lottery tickets and established behemoth that have 0.5% YoY growth stocks. A good recent example of this is Square, which gave out equity grants that were something like 50% lower in cash value than the equivalent role's offer from a FAANG company (this is based off of personal anecdata). However, Square's stock exploded over the past year and that equity today outcompetes many of the equivalent FAANG-level offers. Of course, the opposite could have also been the case -- I've heard stories of underwater options being granted pre-IPO by Square. Sure, a few years later they're worth a lot, but at the time, employees weren't happy.

If you can already tell ahead of time which company's stocks are going up, just take more cash and use it to buy those stocks.

You can probably figure out why telling people to pick a single winning stock isn't good repeatable advice.

When you do get equity, sell your shares as soon as you're allowed. Don't bet on a single company more than you have to -- you're already staking a large chunk of your salary and career on them.