Well, then startups better start paying more. One of the biggest things that caused the "startup financial deal" to get out of whack over the past decade was how much the FAANGs were paying. The old deal was simple "You work harder now, you take less in cash salary now, but with more equity so that if the startup hits, you'll be sitting pretty." Except what happened over the past 15ish years was:
1. VC firms and startup founders took more of the upside.
2. The FAANGs started paying considerably more
So what happened is that all but the very earliest employees, or very senior C-levels that needed a ton of equity and cash to jump to a riskier startup, end up doing worse or barely hitting FAANG level comp even if the startup successfully exists (and, mind you, most startups don't successfully exit).
Basically, I'll put it another way. The reason C-level execs require a ton of cash and equity to join a startup is because they know what their worth is, and they can do math. Many startups still rely on young people fresh out of college who (a) don't know their worth yet, (b) haven't learned how to appropriately value their equity awards, or (c) buy in to a vision to the point that they undervalue how much their skills are worth.
Look, I'm all for working in startups - I've pretty much worked for ones my entire career. But prospective employees should look at their packages and employment options with the same dispassionate eyes that investors use to evaluate companies.
Edit: Sam Altman had a good blog post on how startup employees often get shafted with equity comp, and I totally agree with his diagnosis and proposed solutions: https://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity