This. I joined a moderately successful startup (good acquisition where founders made > $1 m) and the rewards were not worth the risks as an early employee. Also, the RSUs are low risk, high rewards at the "usual suspects". Unless you love working on a small team with more autonomy, but without comfortable resources and losing sleep over whether your company will be there next week, I just don't see the attraction of joining a startup as an early employee. You can learn a whole lot from a "usual suspect", where the world's experts reside, and a whole team of competent and hard-working people are also.
With that said, I'm super interested in how we can make it better for early employers, and the obvious solution is to give them more equity. Why do founders get over 10x early employees ? Just doesn't seem fair.
With that said, I'm super interested in how we can make it better for early employers, and the obvious solution is to give them more equity. Why do founders get over 10x early employees ? Just doesn't seem fair.