Many people who join startups have &quot;invested&quot; an opportunity cost of similar magnitude.   If the company they&#x27;re working for goes south, they&#x27;ve lost the better salary they could have had at the larger company, they&#x27;ve lost their job, they&#x27;ve lost their health insurance, they&#x27;ve lost their equity they have in their company, et cetera.<p>That doesn&#x27;t seem like much in today&#x27;s hot market, but ask anybody who went through a crash how much a stable job is worth.<p>If you&#x27;re not comfortable investing ~100K in a startup, you probably shouldn&#x27;t join one.