I didn't have any equity. The only thing I invested was several years of my life and a fair amount of blood,sweat&tears. The other early days engineers and myself worked our asses of, going beyond the call of duty as they say. I don't think I (or my former coworkers) felt entitled as such. We certainly did feel like we were underappreciated when piles of cash were being handed out to everyone but us.
The harsh truth is that your expectations were wrong. I could be a lot nicer about this but it's the simple fact. You thought you deserved more because you busted your ass and took a risk, but the reality is that it's just sort of silly to work at startups and bust your ass without some legally binding agreement to potentially get a reward for your above-and-beyond work.
