By joining a late stage (vs early stage) startup as an employee, you are trading execution risk for valuation risk.<p>At an early stage startup, your shares are essentially free to purchase - especially if you join a company which hasn&#x27;t had a formal external valuation event (like a fundraise) yet. All your risk is around the startup evolving into a successful business with a high value.<p>Join a late-stage startup, and most of the execution risk is gone. But the company may already have an artificially high value attached - so you have a lot of risk that your shares end up being worth significantly less than you paid for them.<p>The real unicorn, for an employee, is a middle- to late-stage company which has successfully executed, is growing, and ideally hasn&#x27;t had any formal external valuation events. There your shares are cheap to buy and extremely likely to increase in value.