1. It's a 30 person shop
2. Author makes 3x the juniors
3. The juniors don't think author is worth 3x them
4. the HR person was a bad hire
Dollars to donuts this is a very poorly run company (each of 2-4 essentially prove so alone, so they definitely point that way in combination).
Let's assume developers (cause I'm not qualified to talk anything else). Let's assume the 50/150 since 150 I'd estimate is about market for a senior dev at least in CA at that size shop. Juniors are more like 70k (or more? I may be a bit out of touch), so 50k is 40% short.
The chances that the junior folks are paid well short of market with great equity and the senior hire is market with little equity? Yeaaaah.
Honestly in my experience it's more likely that everyone at this company is fucked for equity, and everyone that didn't know better was fucked for salary also.
> Author makes 3x the juniors
That assumes the author accurately knows the salaries and equity positions of the employees, which is unclear and raises more questions if true.
> the HR person was a bad hire
This is a clever way to get someone to leave the company: create in-company tension in a way that drives the person to leave.
Excuse my french, but companies that need "clever ways to get people to leave", are fucked. SUPER fucked.
Also, I think very few companies have lots of latitude with equity. I've seen plenty of double offers (higher-salary/lower-equity and then visa-versa, take your pick) but very few of them have a super big swing. Most shops (rightfully) have a particular bent in terms of the type of risk they want their folks to be taking.
Anyways, yeah. I'll stick with my bet that the company, the senior person, and the HR person are all entities that you should stay far away from.
Further... dunno what industry, dunno what market.. but in my experience in west coast software 3x a junior employee would be a bit fishy at a company that size. Sounds like someplace I would not want to work :)