For the youngsters reading this thread, please understand there is a big difference in the expected return of early and late stage startups. Early stage startu

For the youngsters reading this thread, please understand there is a big difference in the expected return of early and late stage startups. Early stage startups are often a crap shoot financially as others have pointed out, and contracts are structured so that unless you're a founding member, even a successful exit (after 10 years avg) probably won't net you FAANG money. You will however probably have greater job satisfaction having more ownership over the product and will gain a much greater breadth of experience, which are the main reasons people leave FAANGs for startups (yes that is quite common). Late stage startups (companies that are still primarily VC backed) but have a high likelihood of a successful exit have a financial risk-reward that is much closer to FAANG. The upside is that they are not so massive that your job will mean more than just ladder climbing and working on menial projects that have zero business impact. You may find pre-ipo companies (Robinhood, Instacart, Coursera) hit that sweet spot of comp and job satisfaction. Also if SPACs continue to get more popular, there's another option for the mid-stage startups.