If you go and look at levels.fyi as an engineer in a startup, you get almost the exact same cash compensation as a FAANG engineer but now you have a bigger slic

If you go and look at levels.fyi as an engineer in a startup, you get almost the exact same cash compensation as a FAANG engineer but now you have a bigger slice of a lottery ticket, can grow your career faster, and generally you are likely to have a 'free spirit' kind of workplace. Even if the startup goes 'total loss', you lose nothing compensation-wise and get picked up 48 hours - 3 weeks later by another place. Maybe I am anti-jaded (?) but I can't understand the allure of being employee number 290,000 where your job is to change the color of a button back and forth. Is $150k+ in cash really not worth actually being useful to a company?