you're right, people can't. If you want shot at a significant chunk of a multi billion dollar sale you start your own company. As the github founders did.

If you want up be paid $x a fortnight right from the get go then you get a job.

I don't see how the success of people who chose to do A means people that did B got screwed, just because they both worked on the same project. The decisions they made and context of their choosing to work on it were still different things each with their own pros and cons

Unless there was some more to it. Like share /options shenanigans that might not be legally fraud but fraud in spirit. No one seems to be saying that happened here though.