The objection barely warrants addressing. A founder says "I'm keeping the equity and I'll pay you X salary." Employee says "OK." Nobody's exploiting anyone in that exchange.
At a point in time before Mailchimp was clearly a success (and thus equity would actually be worth something), most engineers would jump at a salary-over-equity compensation scheme because it's common knowledge (at least around here) that equity is a lottery ticket that usually doesn't pay off.
At a point in time before Mailchimp was clearly a success (and thus equity would actually be worth something), most engineers would jump at a salary-over-equity compensation scheme because it's common knowledge (at least around here) that equity is a lottery ticket that usually doesn't pay off.