Long answer.

Startups are racing against a clocking of burning capital. At the beginning, they are all moving to zero (run out of cash).

The goal is to hit profitability, sell, or lock in further funding before hitting zero.

Labor is a significant cost, especially for startups.

Equity options are meant to reduce labor cost and give a startup a longer runway before hitting zero.

Even if one can trust the leaders of a company to not rug everyone, one must also trust that they are competent, properly allocating capital, and driving development in the right direction. Many startups fail, not because of malicious activity, but because of ignorance and poor decisions.

Even if the startup us successful, as you mentioned earlier, there is a potential that a vast amount of dilution takes place.

Again, it might not be malicious. Maybe funds were needed to get through thr next round of development before profitability could be achieved.

But the risk is present.

Then, on top of all that, you have the risk that leadership is greedy and will do anything they can to maximize their returns or exit, without regard to those who worked diligently to make it a success.

Historically, the vast majority of startups fail.

So its reasonable to assume that the vast majority of equity options are worthless.