I had similar experience with startups. With current conventions in startup labor market, only being a founder or or being at Facebook as number <10 employee pays off.
Both are off my list because I'm not lucky enough to join the next Facebook and I'm not capable of founding a company myself at the moment.
Getting sweet $170k salary with some bonus, massage, free food and shuttle is good enough for me.
As a general rule of thumb, if a company is willing to do the extremely expensive action of acquihiring, they are willing to part a pretty high amount of equity of employees. Not acquihire-high of course, but a pretty good amount.
Of course, it could be argued that they aren't "startups" by that point, but "growth companies."
Both are off my list because I'm not lucky enough to join the next Facebook and I'm not capable of founding a company myself at the moment.
Getting sweet $170k salary with some bonus, massage, free food and shuttle is good enough for me.