Google and startups are two extreme ends of the spectrum, and neither is that great in terms of risk-reward balance.  Personally, I&#x27;d recommend joining an established, but still growing, medium-sized company.  That means shortly before, or a year or two after IPO, somewhere between 100-500 employees. That kind of a place still has momentum and is still relatively generous with equity.  You won&#x27;t get as rich as your pre-IPO coworkers, but you&#x27;ll do OK and with less sacrifice.  If the company is still growing, there will be opportunities for promotion and for learning and doing a lot of cool things.  Think of joining Google or Facebook when they had 500 employees.  In hindsight, it seems obvious that that was a good time to join, but I&#x27;m sure that lot&#x27;s of people passed on the opportunity, thinking that it was too late.  So recognizing that a company still has momentum can be a bit tricky.  If you are coming out of college, one easy way to test if an established company is still a good place or if it has stagnated is to do an internship there.