Where did you hear the pay is terrible? From what I've heard, it seems pretty normal for the industry, at least for software engineers.

If you dig into the package, a lot of the value is locked up in unsellable shares. Vs immediately liquid RSUs of any public company.

I'm referring to the cash salary only.

Comparing two offers where one is cash + liquid equity (the case at most major tech companies) and the other is the same amount of cash + equity in a company that has no near-term plans to IPO (the case at Uber), most people would consider the first offer to be worth more.

Even if nominally the equity is worth the same in the both cases, liquidity is also valuable. (And the equity might not really be worth the same--companies have been forced to IPO at a valuation lower than their last round of funding.)

Stock is exactly the same as cash to me, since I always sell all of it on the day it vests. Why would you only compare cash salaries when evaluating compensation? That makes no sense.

It's different for private companies. You can't just sell the stock on the public market. Also, incentive stock options are subject to the AMT.

My stock award halved in value in the year it took to vest. Treating it "exactly the same as cash" is foolish.

tsunamifury said pay, not cash salary... There's more to pay than cash, especially for private companies.

That is any startup / private company. That isn't unique to Uber at all. IPOs are usually done when your profitable or have no other choice. You want to do an IPO when your profitable / break even or usually it becomes a bad deal for everyone.

Uber explicitly prohibits stock sale on the secondary market, and their options expiry after 30 days of leaving job (instead of the standard-but-undesireable-still 90 days).

That's par for the course at unicorns/non public companies though. Both their cash and equity portions are fair (really good for unicorns actually) from what I've heard