The thing is, it's very hard to get rich without some sort of equity. Maybe it's not equity in public companies, but almost all wealthy people get to that point by owning something. Whether that's stock options in a startup or a general partnership in a hedge fund or a medical practice or a piece of property that gets developed.
All equity comes with risk. Doubly so for the type of equity that generates a lot of wealth. Stability is nice, but expect to pay through the nose for it. The only real exception I can think of are people with exceptional talent in an exceptionally in demand skill. E.g. Tom Brady or Linus Torvalds or a world-class neurosurgeon.
Linus Torvalds makes a lot less than Tom Brady. He basically makes as much as the executive director at the Linux Foundation, something over $600K, but nothing extraordinary by SV standards. And there's no equity associated with the LF.
I once saw him walking the floor at Comdex (not the main Las Vegas one but in Chicago). Watchig him walking around, shaking hands, and catching up with his old friends at Red Hat and the like, I couldn't help but feel an intangible sense that the guy was happy. Someone who had created something significant out of nothing (This was before Linux really took off in the 90s). I was starstruck.
> His fortunes changed in 1999. Red Hat and VA Linux, both leading purveyors of Linux-based software packages tailored for large enterprises, had granted him stock options with no strings attached, thank-yous from entrepreneurs who hoped to grow rich off his creation. When Red Hat went public that year, Torvalds was suddenly worth $1 million. On the day VA Linux (now VA Software) went public, Torvalds was worth roughly $20 million, though by the time he could sell his shares, they were valued at only a fraction of that.
> Torvalds hesitated before buying himself his first expensive bauble, a two-seater BMW convertible. "I was a bit nervous about people's reaction," he confesses. "Are they going to think I've gone over to the dark side?" In the end he decided that the shape and price of the hunk of metal he drove to and from work each day was his own business. Despite counsel to the contrary, Torvalds wisely sold all of his stock and spent almost all of the windfall on his home and his cars, trusting that he'd always be able to earn a good salary as an engineer.
All equity comes with risk. Doubly so for the type of equity that generates a lot of wealth. Stability is nice, but expect to pay through the nose for it. The only real exception I can think of are people with exceptional talent in an exceptionally in demand skill. E.g. Tom Brady or Linus Torvalds or a world-class neurosurgeon.