It's for this reason I consider being an investor a much stronger position than a founder and orders of magnitude better than an early employee. As an investor

It's for this reason I consider being an investor a much stronger position than a founder and orders of magnitude better than an early employee. As an investor, you have information that only you are founders are privy to. You can continue drawing a salary in whatever your day job is. At the end of the day, your loss is limited to the money you put in and the relatively low time investment. A founder gives up all of their time and near term compensation for a lottery ticket. For people already on a good trajectory, anything but a stellar exit is probably a net loss. For early employees, it almost always is a loss.