Yes, but most of these companies fail and the options thus worthless. I mean it's great when it works out, but like lottery tickets they usually aren't worth the paper they are printed on.
Right: startups give out options, and those options are likely to be worthless. Your previous comment, however, was also suggesting causation: startups give out options because they are likely to be worthless. That's certainly not the entire reason. Like I said, a startup doesn't want to pay market salary because it would effectively ~halve their cash runway versus shifting compensation towards equity.