Sure, not dismissing it, but it's not the same value. It's not hard cash that the founders/employees can spend, so it's mostly useless in terms of value for research, charity, self-funding new ventures without VCs, investing in other companies, side projects, or whatever else you would do with hard cash.

If you're an early employee of Caviar and got $1M in AMZN stock or options? You could sell it for cash. DoorDash stock? It could be $0 in a few years for all you know, and you quite possibly have no avenues to liquidate it for anything now.