[jeffpeterson]

Risk is important, but the value of something is a function of its opportunity cost. In other words, if you think a role is not worth the compensation, simply found your own company. Presumably, if the founding engineer compensation is mispriced, your new company will have an advantage over the others. I suspect most will find that founding a company is actually much harder than being a founding engineer.

Frankly, one of the satisfying things about a free market is that we don't have to rationalize these numbers at all. If the numbers are wrong, the market will select for better theories.