[alexandros]

I'd be loathe to join a company where 10 people have a "real voice in the direction of the company". When you join an early team the only way is to trust the founder(s) as knowing what they're doing and listening to the team when there's a good point being made. The alternative is a recipe for politics from day 1.

[Iftheshoefits]

I wouldn't want to join a 10-founder startup, either. A follow-on to my comment would be that an engineer looking to work at a startup should almost never take options as a part of compensation, and should rarely take actual equity if it isn't sufficient to be on near-equal footing with the other founders' equity. Startups also shouldn't offer such crappy deals. They should pay the market rate, or slightly more because of the inherent risk in being an employee of a startup entails, and forgo the charade of stock grants (in any form).

[davidw]

I work at a small-ish company, and while, no, I don't have a "real voice in the direction of the company", I do have a voice in my corner of things: technical decisions. That makes me significantly happier than showing up and just being told what to use and do.