I'm probably not seeing the difference but it almost seems like by this logic a busboy (busperson?), the person that cleans up the dishes at a restaurant is owed $$$$$$$ because he could have gotten a higher paying job so he's sacrificing for the rest of us?

Is a fast food worker who goes to company A at $8 a hr but expects to move up into a management position and then gets denied, is he owed money because he could have gone to company B at $10 but without a management position expectation?

Employees and founders get paid. So it's lower than market rate it's still > 0 which means zero risk. They get a tiny piece of the pie. If things fail they still got > 0 whereas investors got < 0. You want the big payoff you have to take the big risk.