>So yeah...with Option B you might not hit the lottery. But the skills I learned from multiple attempts at Option B are more applicable in my opinion. And that'

>So yeah...with Option B you might not hit the lottery. But the skills I learned from multiple attempts at Option B are more applicable in my opinion. And that's worth something. Obviously speaking from my own experience, but this hits the nail on the head. The things I learned at startups were parlayed into jobs at the bigger companies later in life. Also, on the original topic. I've been a part of three startups. One with trivial equity, one with options worth about 0.1% of the company, and finally one with options worth 1% of the company. The second company is still going and is a lifestyle business, so those options were basically worthless since the owner may not sell for many, many years. The first and third companies were acquired, but at values that made the options worthless, so I got a long term capital loss for the first company and nothing for the third. For the third, I was an executive, so I got a stock/cash package from the acquiring company for (very) low seven figures, but the stock itself was worth nothing. So, I'm 3 for 3 on "successful" startups, but 0 for 3 on actually cashing in on any equity.