[andy99]

Yes - equity should be an incentive to contribute the the company's success, and partial compensation for the risk of going to a startup. One should value it at precisely $0 in terms of life planning.

This becomes truer and truer the more of an employee and the less agency over the company's choices you have, but generally if you're not a co-founder (founding engineer doesn't count) equity traded off against salary is someone scamming you.

[neilv]

> equity should be an incentive [...] and partial compensation for [...] One should value it at precisely $0 in terms of life planning.*

Not very good incentive or compensation, if you have to value it at $0.

[baq]

Still better than a lottery ticket.

[KingMob]

Given opportunity costs, you could easily argue that it should have negative value.

[daniel_iversen]

Not if you live in a country where you can end up paying more taxes than the equity is worth! Be a little careful with Options and RSUs depending on where you live, and even more so for certain companies etc

[parpfish]

> equity should be an incentive to contribute the the company's success

the much bigger motivation is "keep the company afloat so i can keep drawing my salary", so just boring old non-equity paychecks provide plenty of motivation.

if you're an employee that thinks your contributions are so great that you are single-handedly juicing the stock price or valuation, you're probably wrong but if not... you should probably take those skills and found your own startup.