The expected value is a fine way of looking at it. There’s other ways that favor the startup though. Working at SV startups your whole working life will still p

The expected value is a fine way of looking at it. There’s other ways that favor the startup though. Working at SV startups your whole working life will still probably result in retiring very comfortably, with some fraction of the money your friend who worked at established companies their whole life. At the midrange of the preference curve that’s a problem, but you’re still likely in the same order of magnitude of wealth. The difference is if you have a strong desire to have an order of magnitude more wealth, you often can’t do that in established companies only. At the least you can bounce into startups for the executive and leadership experience then bounce back to established companies at a managerial role, but by then you probably have the experience and connections to make a startup with its huge potential payoffs more likely. If retirement comfort is what you seek, you will likely get reach that at startups too, but you will likely only see those massive payoffs with startups.