&gt; If you&#x27;re a good developer, you can get a better deal by working at an established company and simply investing.<p>This cannot be emphasized strongly enough. Even if you suck at investing, take a look at the max fluctuations for Valley&#x27;s finest - AAPL, GOOG, FB or NFLX. Starting as a very late employee at any of those places with companies well past IPO stage with original equity package pegged at 1.5x-3x the annual salary, with annual&#x2F;biannual refreshers and occasional performance bonuses yields a very secure future.<p>Of course, there&#x27;s a bit of survivor bias here, but employees of a publicly traded company generally have a better idea of the company direction.