One company's name was conspicuously absent from the article. Does anyone believe Tesla is still a player in the autonomous driving game? They always seem to be playing catch-up.
I've earned stock options from three startups and none of them ever went public. The only company that ever actually paid me equity was Amazon and it was a pretty big payout. You will earn a lot more with RSUs than options.
I'm an engineer with an MBA and they definitely don't teach in business school that respect is optional. It's just something bad managers do all on their own.
I think the biggest career mistake engineers make -- myself included -- is assuming your contributions will be automatically recognized when in fact the amount of credit you receive is equal to how much you contributed multiplied by the amount of attention you draw to it.