Unless you work in SV, I think the advice for the rest of us is: take equity/stocks/options as a lottery ticket. Very unlikely that you’ll cash something, therefore base compensation is king.
It's the same thing in the SV. Unless the company is doing liquidity events the early, but post-founder equity is unlikely to pan out for employees.
And it can motivate employees to stay at the company way beyond what's good for them, as leaving the company means either abandoning your equity or exercising your options and paying real money for a very risky and illiquid asset. My 2c.
The problem becomes they (the company) talks/treats it as money paid and expects a lower salary (or additional passion like being happy to wake up at 4am to deal with an issue randomly) in exchange. They also want people who buy into the lie.
If you work for a moderately large company, it probably won't go to zero (though it could so you may want to hedge your bets). Not sure what SV specifically has to to do with it. I agree in general about focusing on cash on the barrel.
