Are stock options a good incentive for your work?

In almost every case, I'd say "no", I wouldn't accept stock instead of cash, at least not at a one to one correspondence. The only case where I would, would be if it were a stock grant of actual shares, not options, AND if there was a real market for the shares (either the company is public, or there's an active secondary market) AND the shares don't come with some weird clause which pushes the date that they can be sold out so far that the price is likely to vary a lot between now and then.

The chances of all three of those conditions being true at the same time is approximately zero though.

Generally speaking, I treat stock options as worthless, especially if it's a company where there is no market and no known price for the shares. It's easy to wind up in a case where exercising your options would cost more than the stock is worth, by the time you're able to exercise them.

A stock grant is worth something, but those are much less common. And how to value them is, again, dependent on "is there a market?", "are there restrictions on when and how I can sell them?", etc.

The startup and VC culture has being the dominant model of a lot of companies. The difference with solid businesses and burning-money machines is that one gets funds to build, and the other builds to get funds.

The average lifespan of a startup is 3 years, so unless it's zoom and covid 2 comes in the next 3 years, your stocks won't be worth much.

I'd take the money.

Specially in an era like today with financial crisis and scandals, cash is king.

It depends on the company. I went to work at Apple in 2001 and received a large option grant. I made a lot of money when I exercised them in 2011, taxes notwithstanding. If the company is a start-up, their options are probably worthless and should never be an excuse for an artificially low salary.