I've been seeing really shitty vesting schedules more often these days. a year in an early stage startup is often more intense than years in larger companies, yet they feel the need to push vesting schedules like 5/15/30/50 on people.
even if you do stick it out and exercise those options and eat the tax burden, those shares can still be ignored in an acquisition or diluted into oblivion in an IPO if the agreements are structured to allow that.
with a fat carrot dangling at the end of year four and the promise of an IPO Soon™, a lot of people will be more than happy to ignore important parts of their lives and financial well being for the chance of maybe, just maybe, getting access to that lottery ticket.
I think a better analogy might be like gambling in a casino. investors get to write the rules and hold all the leverage. the worst places are mobbed up, the rest might be legit but either they have every incentive to keep selling you the dream of winning big. in all likelihood, if you keep making that bet you'll walk out worse off than you were when you walked in.
if a startup or VC truly gave a shit about anyone outside the c-suite, they'd have an employee ownership program of some form and assign actual equity, not just options. I've yet to see many of them do this though because founders are the most likely ones to be gambling in those kinds of casinos.