I&#x27;m not as pessimistic as most here, but start-up employee really is the worst of all worlds.<p>1. Reports vary but the general consensus seems to be lower pay than a Fortune 500 or similar for more demanding hours.<p>2. If you&#x27;re offered equity it&#x27;s an insulting fractional percentage (how can you be offered 0.1% and not let the profanities fly?), and will need to use actual money to exercise the options.<p>3. There are tons of stories of completely incompetent and&#x2F;or corrupt founders literally locking the door on employees (Zirtual et al).<p>4. I&#x27;d be remiss if I didn&#x27;t at least bring up the insane (comparatively) COL of the Bay Area compared to even other large US metropolitan areas.<p>I&#x27;m not going to start railing about VC-istan because I do think the degree to which the system is rigged gets overblown, but if you&#x27;re going to be involved in start-ups it doesn&#x27;t make sense to be anything other than a founder, C-level-for-hire employee, or investor IMO.