This sounds like either it is an extremely unrealistic expectation or it's extremely unfair.
I know lots of smart people who worked for at least 10 years in very intense startup environments and got essentially nothing out of it. Often, they have to fallback on a life of contract work for huge boring corporations.
Yes, it's not guaranteed by anything.
I also know of cases where founder alone ended up with billions and early employees got nothing.
I just see those startups as poorly executed who decided to kill their army after victory way home.
We should strive for execution where at least your comrades also win.
It is not a zero-sum game. You win when your comrades win. The glory is not in taking it all but taking pride in what you have created and can potentially create and expand on over and over again. :)
Every dollar of an exit given to an employee is a dollar that the VC or founder can't have.
Strip the ideal away and people will leave in droves. Without a differentiator, startups are just like everything else.
Then it's time to play the game of "compete against each other, and the worst 10% gets fired". Suddenly the talent becomes cheaper, and stops talking about work-life balance.