as an ex-CEO who offered stock to employees in lieu of pay because my startup was running low on funds, it was all rejected. i later found out when i left the room, some of the employees actually mocked me and made it seem like i was just trying to scam them. one of them said something like "he's offering us stock in a company that is basically worthless, does he think we are idiots?"
just to be clear, the company was not worthless. we were actually somewhat breakeven at that point, monthly revenue was around $15k and employee salaries were somewhere around $15-16k. the idea at the time was that if they accepted stock compensation instead of cash, the company could theoretically afford to hire more developers, or launch a more ambitious marketing campaign. i did not factor in the fact that these employees weren't invested in the company, and to them, the fact that we weren't making millions in revenue means we are broke. so they value the stock at zero.
just to conclude the story: i ended up selling my company to another large company for a small profit (not headline-making numbers), enough that i can live comfortably and continue pursuing entrepreneurship dreams while not being employed. the employees who would have received stock back when i offered it would have made a profit, although in all honesty it's not Google or Facebook money. just for fun, i did a quick calculation on how much one of the employees who refused the offer would have made in stock - it was roughly about $250,000 worth.