I Don’t Care How Well You Code, Understand Your Compensation

No way. I have been screwed often enough by companies that I am no longer going to put in uncompensated additional effort more than once per employer. If I want to do charitable work, there is no shortage of open-source projects out there that would pay in gratitude or reputation.

When I am "at will" in a company with zero actual ownership, I have no interest whatsoever in seeing the company succeed or fail. It makes no difference to me whether the job disappears because the company goes under, or because the CEO doesn't like my face, or because the owners sell out and the new bosses clean house. Any non-cash incentives will have no effect on me until they are actually in my possession. A promise that can be broken without consequence at any moment before the expected delivery date is no promise at all.

As an employee-owner, I can have a positive effect on the outcome of the company. But not once has any of my employers fully upheld any promise related to ownership made at or before hiring. So now all my accounting is by what I have in hand. If what I have is a load of tissue-thin promises that I have no means to enforce, that's great for wiping my backside with. I believe it was put more delicately some time ago as "don't count your chickens before they're hatched," and "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush."

If you can't meaningfully enforce the promise, it is worth nothing. If you have a vesting schedule, and the employer can change it by firing you without cause, it is worth nothing. Analyze your proposed compensation defensively; pretend that the company is out to screw you without you even noticing it, because sometimes they are.

Also all compensation promised you during interviews should be in place within 60 days of joining. I've seen companies drag their feet for months, only to come up with an option plan significantly worse than the deal that was pitched to you (which the founders and early employees got. And thus you should have got, but they decided to be greedy, and then it took 6 months to come up with a plan.)

"There is only a single liquidation preference" - that's not ideal, but it's ok. "I think there's just one liquidation preference" - that means there are probably two, only one of which is called an LP, and the guy doesn't know terms well enough to avoid getting screwed in a liquidity event.

Of course all of this is less significant than the analysis of whether you think there ever will be a liquidity event or not... but having been around a couple decades and gone thru a couple of them, the founders made out well, even though they got screwed, and the employees didn't make a good risk adjusted return on what they gave up.

Of course, I didn't work for any unicorns. In that case the results are much better.

Problem is that options plans and even employe compensation plans at startups are built to only make sense assuming the company is a unicorn.

Most startups are not unicorns.

The use of the word "capital" here indicates a misunderstanding of the social dynamics of tribal economies.

They produce and consume that which they need together because of shared benefit.

Large scale centralized constructions like the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, or power grids are built to serve the stationary needs of the big city not the small, distributed, mobile tribe.

If and when the cash comes, will your real salary increase? No! Of course not!

You will be the last to know and this information asymmetry is the reason the rules are stacked against you, which is why you should never stop asking for more money. If the company tanks then so what? Not your problem, you're a developer.

The premise of my argument is that the separation between the two groups you mentioned is so temporary that it doesn't even matter -- and not only that but whether you're a mercenary is not up to you, it's up to your employer. You might as well get paid fairly to reduce your risk surface.