Actually this is pretty common amongst a lot of my friends just graduating from school.  If you have AI/ML skills, you can often choose between finance, which will make you a millionaire before you're 25, or a hip place that pays you a mediocre salary, or if you're lucky, a hip place that pays you a mediocre salary with good stock options.<p>I turned down the more guaranteed capital gains at a trading company for a riskier bet in stock options at a company I really like, although only after heavily negotiating.  I do not regret it.<p>* Mediocre is defined here as roughly 85K.  That is a shit ton more than anyone else I know who I graduated high school with makes in rural New York.  It's all a relative.