E.g. an early employee gets a lot less stock than an early founder despite everyone at this stage doing a lot of work. There is a sharp boundary that distinguishes between those involved in the "process of creation", an "elder" or parental class, and the followers.
This process happens a few times so there are multiple boundaries where eldership and sense of ownership falls off dramatically.
Individuals that are hired past a certain fall-off point are compensated in ownership units only to be competitive with other companies. E.g. whether it's RSUs or options, the "expected value" of the compensation is around market rate, only the volatility(kurtosis) of the expected outcome differs.
Since there isn't a direct sense of ownership over the revenue stream, individuals are motivated to increase compensation by managing larger teams b/c the market rate for someone who can do that is higher.
There is less return on effort and more risk to do sth like fight through the org structure to gain the necessary political capital to go all-in on an initiative, even with pocket aces.
It's better to work with the org structure and with the ambitions of the individuals you interact w/ daily in the local subtree.