Comment by sneak

> It's the mindset that it's somehow okay to pay employees very small fractions of what they are really worth.

The employee decides what they are “really worth” when they accept, reject, or negotiate an offer. His rejection of the check offered him was his doing precisely that.

That’s not an issue with companies, that is an attribute of human free association and free, consensual dealing in general.

If you offer services at $100/hour but I know I can sell those services for $1000/hour (with my involvement) and you voluntarily accept $100/hour and agree to work for me, I have turned opportunity into profit, and have exploited no one. Sales and marketing and connections to people in specialty markets have a value, too!

(Correspondingly, the hypothetical “you” in this example may have not been able to get or generate more than $100/hour alone. Sometimes the sum is greater than the parts, and the assembly is itself a value-generating activity.)

But ultimately this story illustrates very well that the final arbiter of what price a person places on their time and effort is themself. No one can force you to accept a certain wage, and, as was demonstrated, you can always tell a billionaire to go stuff it.

Seems to have worked out pretty well for OP in the end, even without the CIA-vendor equity.