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zipy124 | on: UK's hardware talent is being wasted
The safe job earns much much more unless you are the founder. Equity pay for start-ups in the UK for devs is very poor, or non-existent, and the base salary also very poor (and not even guaranteed to be paid if they go under). You can instead work for a company like nvidia, google or meta and get a huge base, and nice equity on top.

If UK startups paid equity to their devs, I would work a lot harder when I've worked at them, but startups require working hard and long hours and if I've got no skin in the game, what incetive do I have to make sure the company is successful.

shawabawa3 | parent
I've been shocked in my career in the UK by just how much founders will rip people off on equity

In basically every UK startup I've worked at they've done 1 or all of the below:

1. Offered options in numbers with no valuation/percentage of ownership. "We offer you 40000 stock options!". When asked to clarify numbers, they delay and never tell you. Inevitably they have a value of a few pence each

2. Withdraw options unilaterally when you leave the company with no option to exercise

3. Never get round to filling in the paperwork so you never actually receive them

I was _shocked_ when i worked for my first US startup and they just...gave me the options. And I could exercise them whenever I wanted. And they expired 10 years after I left the company