Why is that a scam? Nobody ever promises you any specific valuation or fraction of the company. When I joined a company relatively late but well before IPO, some funny number of shares at 12 cents or whatever each did not even enter my calculation any more than "oh and they also give me a free lottery ticket". In my case depending on when one sold after IPO they would have been in the range centered around about compensating for the salary differential I think, but nobody promises you they'd ever be worth more than Monopoly money
> Nobody ever promises you any specific valuation or fraction of the company
Would you mind asking before saying what I have been promised?
Also it feels like you have never been in a startup. The whole language of growth everywhere, the "billion-dollar startup", the "becoming a unicorn", this is all suggesting that "you're part of it and it matters to you if it becomes a unicorn". But it doesn't, really. Because you get diluted.