Depressing? All this are saying is: Unless you're a founder, you're an employee. Earlier employees are closer to the founder end, later employees are closer to the employee end. Neither are probably going to retire at 23 from an early acquisition. The latter are probably not even gonna retire from a monster exit (though in this case there are probably more employees, early is relative).

They do have a chance at making quite a lot of money though. 3k/40m is less then 0.01%. So it's not really a big part of the compensation package. In that case, stock just isn't a reason to work there. There may be other reasons to.

It's depressing that being in the vicinity of a startup doesn't make you rich? If everyone was rich, it wouldn't be rich. By definition, it's not available to everyone. You think market rates + a 50% chance at being millionaire, should be the going rate?