Maybe I should, so that I could abuse from the employees and then explain how I deserve to get rich if MY startup succeeds but my employees don't (because it is MY startup, you see? I don't need them).

Good luck with this! Let us know how it goes.

Founders have leverage, because they started the company. If you don't like it, start your own and don't join someone else's.

Where I come from, that's an ultra-liberal point of view.

I mean, you could certainly start your own company, and then be more generous with your employees around these sorts of things. Sadly, you might have more trouble attracting investment, but you could probably still pull it off.

Which would not solve the problem of startups generally being a Ponzi scheme and being toxic for employees, though.