Or give huge life balance over work plus fair salary. Find someone who wants a 4 day a week gig, has exp, etc...

Why any equity at all? It's a job.

Profit sharing/equity sharing is an excellent way to motivate employees and attract talent, especially if the employment nature is as risky and unstable as an early stage startup.

My friend works as a social worker, completely different field, and her employer created a profit sharing plan. They all love it. This is not limited to tech.

A profit sharing plan is not equity, and probably has a clause they can pull it whenever they want.

I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it, HN is always quick to remind me that a tangential point, if casually mentioned as a way to give more context to a conversation, is going to be the focus of any further reply, rather than addressing the core. Truly my bad here, you did what you are supposed to do.

Good luck hiring engineers at a tech startup with no equity, that’s all I’ll say.

I think it's entirely cultural, maybe in the US in SV?

Everywhere else, you're a bit silly giving equity away for free.

Because if you don't offer fair equity then any engineer worth their salt will just go somewhere that does.

Give me real money over potential maybe future money any day.