I've worked for three startups, each fairly well-known at least at some weird level. Two early stage and one immediately pre-IPO. One of the early ones netted

I've worked for three startups, each fairly well-known at least at some weird level. Two early stage and one immediately pre-IPO. One of the early ones netted me nothing(1), while the other gained me ~$10K when they went public(2). The third was quite lucrative, and was the least demanding - by far - of life tradeoffs. (1)Other than a feeling that I'd joined the Witness Protection Program when I fled after an engineering walkout. (2)Offset by literally years of damaged self-esteem. Pedigree is heavily overrated - with one exception, all the famous people were pretty awful.