I've joined two startups now as the 2nd and 4th engineer. I went into both expecting nothing from options or shares, and knowingly accepted a lower than market salary because I liked the teams and projects.

I couldn't be happier. Neither panned out for me with regards to stocks, and I definitely didn't get rich in the process, but I very much enjoyed the jobs and when I decided to leave it was only because the business direction wasn't a fit for what I wanted to spend my time on.

It sure sounds like a privledged position, but it more came down to us living cheaply compared to our income and having the breathing room to trade a higher salary for work that I really enjoyed. I hope more people can make that tradeoff, it's much more fulfilling in my opinion

I've seen it repeated multiple times, and in the past have even repeated it myself. But these days I'm not so sure. I think you should go into it being ok with the possibility that it'll be worth zero, but I don't think you should plan for it to be worth zero. Put another way, I don't think you should evaluate competing startup offers completely discounting the equity comp. A company that offers $200k and 0.05% of itself is not automatically worse than a company that offers $250k and 0.01% of itself. Hell, that's still true even if they're both offering the same equity ownership percent.