Earning a salary in cash doesn’t stop you from investing the cash. I have never earned equity from an employer but most of my net worth is sitting in publicly traded companies. So obviously I am not lacking company ownership just because the company I worked for didn’t loop me in.

The other reason this isn’t true is that equity becomes a lottery ticket that is written in a founder and investor-preferred manner and is used to fleece mostly young employees who don’t know better and are romanced by the thought of being a part of the next Uber or Airbnb.

The practical reality is that it becomes “this job is worth $150,000 but we’ll pay you $100,000 and you can have some equity that might be worth hundreds of thousands if the casino pays out.”

But then you have investor preference multiples, valuation fuckery, and other ways that even a successful exited company can pay out less than your fair share.

To me cash is king because I can invest it however I want. Equity is fine if it’s for a public company, as that’s effectively just deferred cash as an incentive to stay longer.