tempforquestion

That is a good advice, thanks. Big companies are not fans of moonlighting like this (potential conflict of interest), but I like the way you are thinking.

The sad part of it is not that you didn't get rich with your startup, it is that you didn't BUT some else did!

That is actually a good point and the kind of info I was looking for.

Paying for equity is "work" means I could stop working whenever I felt like, where a VC cannot (easily) ask the money back.

That is not a bad idea, I like it

Well, I'm not happy where I am :)

I have enough that would not be a problem if I made 20% of what I make today, but I don't have enough that money would never be an issue.

I'm not trying to optimize for money, but I'm not going to ignore it. From what I'm getting from this thread is probably be a founder might be a better fit for me rather than a startup employee.

Pretty much what @United857 said. I had a successful career, but I'm far of an outliner. I did have luck to be at the right place, at the right time.

My day to day work is around planning, coding, and system design.

> I couldn't justify going to any of them just to make a bunch of other people rich.

That is a nice way to put how I feel about my situation.

Excellent question! I want to give the benefit of the doubt to the value of equity and I'm assuming I would join a company that I truly believe.

If you account the true risk, for sure is not worth it.

I'm not trying to make $1M at a startup, but it does bother me when a startup spins their compensation to be what it is because the equity will become so valuable in the future.

For me is less about the money and more about how the risk is asymmetric for the investors. I get it is how the system works...

The issue is companies DO try to sell the idea their equity is going to be extremely valuable in the future, which is what started me on this rabbit hole to try to quantify how valuable they actually are.