[lijason]

That's fine as long as startups don't sell you that the equity that's part of your compensation has any value. In other words, they pay you market-rate that big companies would in salary+liquid equity and/or you decide that whatever discount they offer is worth the difference in work environment.

[xxbondsxx]

...Which is not the case at Dropbox or any startup really.

[lutorm]

They may have liquidity events even if they aren't going public.