The confusing part is that salary and stock get mixed up, but in a public company the stocks effectively cash and can basically be considered salary, unlike illiquid equity.

I don’t know where you’re from, but in SF amongst my circles, senior engineer market rate is about 300-500k but most startups will only pay 150-225k salary so that’s a huge pay cut. However, the base salaries are same, but you can pay your rent, mortgage, or student loans with the public company RSUs.

That’s why it’s bullshit when employees get told they get common shares while investors get preferred because employees take salary and therefore less risk. If you’re walking away from 200k per year of public stock that you could instantly sell on the public market and buy real estate with, you are in fact taking a huge risk and a pay cut. Trying to pretend like you’re not and that the startup is paying a “competitive salary” is a sleight of hand used in 2020 to fool naive engineers.