The truth is that "significant" compensation is often worth little or nothing, and always has been. For every guy who makes $400K off his FAANG options or RSUs, there's at least 100 who made nothing off of their early stage stock options.
Re:Startups Rejecting Venture Capital
by headmelted on Saturday January 12, 2019 @07:40AM
(#18890940)
Even assuming this arbitrary estimate were true (I don't know what the real figures are, and doubt anyone else does, so why not) then this would mean the options were worth $4K ($400k/the 1 person who jackpots) in speculative value, give or take.
Still significant for someone just starting their career.
When you take that (significant) compensation away it should make the job much less appealing. I think a lot of younger (by which I mean years of experience in the industry rather than age) talent has forgotten or is not aware that this is why a startup job became the "done thing".
For many, they'd be better served by working at an established company (even temporarily if they have ambitions of their own startup in the future) as the package will be much better, and because the traditional upside of working for a startup largely doesn't exist anymore.