Salaries seem lower today than the value add because some companies are being valued very highly. $20B for Whatsapp. $26B for LinkedIn. If you were risk taking and joined a no name startup early enough for a less than market salary- and it turns out successful, you do get that share of the pie.
If you want a cushy secure job writing hr applications for a Fortune 100 company, or some code for facebook when it reached 1B users, then its crazy to expect a large share of 'the profits' as the company's profits are spoken for by the owners who bought its shares and they are happy to get rid of expensive engineers as the engineering prowess you are bringing is not required as much now.