It also depends on what you mean by "getting rich." If you want to make say $500k-$5M, I think that by far your best bet is to join a company that is shortly p

It also depends on what you mean by "getting rich." If you want to make say $500k-$5M, I think that by far your best bet is to join a company that is shortly pre-IPO or shortly post-IPO that is CLEARLY valuable. Where your equity will be worth something, barring disaster. If you want to make $10M+, then joining an already-valuable company isn't going to do it unless you can become an executive. Founding a company might do it. If you want to make $100M+, then founding a company is probably the only way you can reasonably do it (unless you're competitive for a very small number of very high end executive slots). What is interesting to me is that I find it kind of hard to imagine many results in which it's truly worthwhile, monetarily, to be an early employee at a start-up. You are much less likely to get wildly mega-rich, like a founder -- probably at least 10x less likely -- and you're much less likely to get a medium-rich than someone who joins already-successful companies. I say this as someone who has been an early employee at several start-ups. And really enjoyed it. But it's hard to make a financial case for it. Maybe the answer is just that being an early employee is financially non-optimal, but some people for a variety of reasons can't or don't want to be founders, and some people for a variety of reasons can't or don't want to get a job at an already-successful company.