I did this, primarily to do work that was interesting and more fulfilling, and it didn't end up working out after a trial period. But I did want to share my ex

I did this, primarily to do work that was interesting and more fulfilling, and it didn't end up working out after a trial period. But I did want to share my experience about the payout question. So I was making $85K a year as a project manager/developer. I went to work in a contract period for a startup who, if I had gone full time, would have offered around $65K to me as well as much worse benefits. That would have included a certain number of shares. The founder gave me his expectation as to what would be a low, medium or high exit. Based on that I would have made between a couple thousand dollars and, at most, $100K. Now, I would have to work at the startup for 4 years to fully vest, meaning I would have lost $20K per year in salary. This means even if had a large exit and I made $100K, it would still just be a little over what I had lost in salary. After a couple of months there, I went to work at another "regular job" and made $100K per year, which means it would have been a loss no matter what. Now I still work making good money and am working on my startup on the side. Since the startup-people were expected to put in significantly more than 40 hours a week anyways, I'm probably just working about the same amount of time and making way more money AND controlling my own destiny with a startup I am personally passionate about.