Friend was the founding engineer at startup that did quite well. Eventually sold for 100s of millions, and yeah, he didn't see a dime.
Always discount those options to 0, and make sure you're getting a good salary.
Always discount those options to 0, and make sure you're getting a good salary.
Is it a euphemism to give early non-founder employees a title that sounds like founder but with minimal corresponding equity?
The 1st engineers join pre-series A, get pretty low salary with the promise of making it big when the company goes public or is bought. Then more engineers come on board when the company has more resources after a few other rounds of funding and they get a salary much closer to the market.
But yes, it's not worth that much more than joining a startup later, and it'd be foolish to evaluate it differently. It's fun, but if you don't have real founder equity don't trick yourself into working longer hours than you would at a regular job.