There's a simple solution to this. Just, don't take any salary that's below the highest market rate you can get. The second you start taking "equity" as compe

There's a simple solution to this. Just, don't take any salary that's below the highest market rate you can get. The second you start taking "equity" as compensation, you're putting yourself at extreme risk, needlessly. If you take a 10K salary cut for options, it's the equivalence of taking the higher salary and investing 10K in that single company. No self respecting financial advisor would ever tell you to take 10K or More per year and invest it in 1 single company - especially if it's the very same company your actually working for! That's just compounding High risk ontop of already high risk. Even if you wanted to do this, you don't need to be an employee of a company to do that. Just join some venture Seed fund that you can invest your 10,20,30K per year, etc. Your chance of success is approximately the same, but at least you won't loose your job when it doesn't work out. And, if your just out of school, or have no other options, then by all means go work for the start up. In this situation your not giving up a higher salary to do so. And always make sure you have work/life balance - the company won't do that for you, you have to make it happen.