Considering many shops are just "implement whatever the business people want" and have things silo'd out across many teams, the autonomy to make a thing you work on and support better is hugely valuable. You can get that lots of other places, but it's very hit and miss on the level of ownership you can actually achieve. Amazon does tend toward a very startup-like sense of technical ownership, even if there's little financial tie to the product.
I'd argue that most startups have little financial tie to the product too for all but the first couple of contributors due to all the complications that wind up going into startup funding. If you can only realize any value from your equity with 1:10000 odds, your expected ownership is 1/10000 of whatever you actually got in equity.
I'd argue that most startups have little financial tie to the product too for all but the first couple of contributors due to all the complications that wind up going into startup funding. If you can only realize any value from your equity with 1:10000 odds, your expected ownership is 1/10000 of whatever you actually got in equity.