I am bookmarking this comment. My first job out of college was a great project for the world, but also at nearly grocery store wages. It was a small company with literally 2-3 people. The CEO was an old man "with no retirement" and also "2 million dollars in debt"

Later when I offered to defer my wages until the product was released (it seemed he was "running out of money"), eventually all the trust building tactics he had used on me over the years were cashed out on as I gradually became disillusioned to realize him paying me dirt was deliberate. He could have easily paid me a decent wage for that work, but ultimately I met nothing but resistance and breadcrumbing and stonewalling when trying to get a decent pay

"I don't have the money to pay you" he said at one point after the fact when I asked to be paid what he owes me. But afterwards and after I had rage quit, he simply hired someone else to start from scratch on my 2nd project after I had told the other developer that one thing I saw first hand working for him was how corporations don't care about people

Granted I wasn't the fastest developer in terms of the number of hours I worked, and the new person he hired seems to have been pretty good, definitely above my level, assuming they implemented all the features I did. But I was getting my work done just fine as far as I and the other dev could tell