Startup options are usually worthless, yes, because very few startups end up getting to a position where the options are worth something.

> No, it is not "wage theft" to not get rich when the company exits

I don't think anyone in this thread thinks they're gonna get rich by working for a startup. There's a hope that they will, that's why they are working, but there's no expectation. Maybe there's an expectation of getting a nice tidy sum after an exit (in the 5 or 6 figures) but not in the 7 or 8 figures, at least not if they're just employees and not founders.

What's being discussed is a startup exiting for billions of dollars and the employees with equity seeing zero of it.

Working for a startup usually means lower wages and longer hours, for the chance at striking it rich if the company succeeds. If employees don't see anything when the company succeeds, there's literally no upside to working for a startup.

I recall having to sit through many trainings on how to value employee equity. My experience is that most startup employers try to BS what it means to convince people to value their equity at a significantly higher price than they otherwise should.

If the employer is explicitly making the employee options worthless, then they should be obligated to disclose this. Otherwise it’s trivial to engineer a corporate entity which pays the employees while “licensing” the technology from an IP holding firm. Later they can simply sell the IP holding firm without owing employees a dollar.

It is absolutely wage theft. Equity is part of the deal. Abusing some legal loophole to deprive employees of ownership and liquidity is not okay.