Now you can tell me everything about how it is worth to risk it for a hot startup etc. etc. but that is 1% of startups or less. 2% of 0 is 0 (yes, that equity is worth nothing in most of the cases). Myself being at the first stage of a startup, I understand how important it is for the founder to have success and fast, but I don't think it should be at the expense of other people. See what this guy wrote in a response email to an application:

"Is deferred cash/options ok, payable when revenues rise over $410k?

All 30 of our Team work this way because of our huge potential and momentum indexing 271 Million products – click below signature in red for details."

Really? You have 30 people working for free until unknown date? And what is the current revenue? Deferred raise is one thing, but deferred cash is way out. No matter how much you romanticize it, your startup is just your baby, not the baby of your employees. If they didn't need the money would they be there working 60 hours a week for your Amazon for Cats startup? Probably not.

There are a lot of these opaque/shady deals, and people have to accept because of lack of jobs (always talking about non-tech positions). People need to work for money first, passion second. See Maslow's hierarchy at the "Safety" level: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

I don't think we should cover employees with gold, but heck, at least pay them decently, especially here in the Valley where the rent costs a kidney.

Do you agree?