> It's obvious he was taken advantage of

That's not clear to me at all from the available evidence.

Maybe he was offered stock and didn't want it.

It's hard to make such black-and-white verdicts without being 100% sure you have all the evidence.

It's a fib that rich people like to tell themselves. "They're getting me rich, but I'm paying them what they're worth."

Unfortunately it's also true. Life isn't fair.

The solution is to ruthlessly threaten to leave, without making it a threat. If the scientist did that, he probably would've been able to get equity. You have to be sure you're as irreplaceable as you think you are, though.

It's something that took a long time to grok. Honor in business simply does not exist, and nobody will look out for you except you.

(Also, woo, this downvote hiding mod is so nice. I have no idea whether I'm being upvoted or downvoted and it's wonderfullll. I can say whatever I want. Toasters are ugly. There, I've just offended everyone who likes toasters. HN hasn't been this pleasant in years.)

> I can say whatever I want.

You always could. That you assign so much value to it that it causes you discomfort if you're downvoted is the problem.

As for the equity bit:

People want jobs, they don't want to be entrepreneurs in general. The large companies that I've worked for must have had shareholders, but I've never seen one or even talked to them. What I was concerned with is whether they were going to pay my wage in time, which was the extent of our agreed upon contract.

Now if mr. Leprino had defaulted on wage payments or had somehow taken unfair advantage of his employees by paying them wages lower than was agreed up on or were considered normal for the work they did then you have a point.

But I'm not familiar with an obligation to give out stock on the part of an employer. If you feel that isn't fair then you'll have an uphill battle ahead of you, your definition of honor is an extreme one that not many people subscribe to , including employees of companies.

Now, of course in an ideal world we'd all equally own all the wealth, the means of production and so on, but every time that has been tried for real it has for the most part not worked. The one counter example that I'm familiar with still has by far the largest chunk of the stock owned by founders and investors.

What you will find works in practice (and which is a lot more common) is profit sharing, where a chunk of the profits is paid out (usually annually) to employees of the company.

As I said, your viewpoint is true, which is why it's easy to believe. But throughout history, there have been many viewpoints that are true but became untenable. I think this is one of them.

As increased automation leads to fewer jobs, basic income is one way to avoid the ill effects. But the other half is entrepreneurship. Ownership. And the current system is not set up to let most people become entrepreneurs.

The other fib that rich people like to believe is that their wealth is merit-based. Again, it's partially true, so it's easy to believe. Just pluck an idea off of the idea tree, then turn your laser focus on. Grow it for ten years, and presto! Rich!

Not so easy. There's a lack of ideas, for one. It's no coincidence YC started in 2005. It was like Standard Oil starting right before the oil fields became monopolized.

Two, there's a lack of cofounders. I've been seeking a cofounder literally my entire adult life. It's possible to go through life and find zero, despite looking. And in the current system, if you don't have a parter, your options are severely limited. I know many people will disagree with this, but your disagreement matters less than the disagreement of VCs, whose money allows companies to form without turning a profit. And if your aim is to turn a profit immediately, not to grow a company, then that lack of ideas I mentioned earlier becomes a famine.