You see this at hyper growth startups, where founding team / seed stage hires work nights and weekends, while complaining loudly about the people hired at series A/B who are logging off at 5pm (and who stand to make 1/10 or 1/100 the equity exit but might be paid 10-30% more on a cash basis).

Early stage equity is one hell of a drug.

As a founder/manager, it’s irrational to expect anything other than fundamentally different levels of output from each “ring” of growth on the tree, because the inputs are very different. Anybody would work much harder for inter generational wealth than they would for a cool $500k. It’s shocking how common it is for early people to project their personal expectations on others and experience dissonance as a result.