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I agree 100%. Also, I don't see a substantial difference in risk between a founder and an early employee at all. Founders typically have little invested in the startup other than their own time but they compensate for that by paying themselves a salary with investor money.

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It sounds like you're saying that early employees and founders have a similar level of rush, but vastly different levels of reward.

Why would anyone ever be an early employee when they can be a founder instead?

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All things equal I don't think they should. The reality is probably a combination of early employees not being as skilled as the founders and behaving irrationally/ not understanding the value of their equity.

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