I'm not as pessimistic as most here, but start-up employee really is the worst of all worlds.
1. Reports vary but the general consensus seems to be lower pay than a Fortune 500 or similar for more demanding hours.
2. If you're offered equity it'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.
3. There are tons of stories of completely incompetent and/or corrupt founders literally locking the door on employees (Zirtual et al).
4. I'd be remiss if I didn't at least bring up the insane (comparatively) COL of the Bay Area compared to even other large US metropolitan areas.
I'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're going to be involved in start-ups it doesn't make sense to be anything other than a founder, C-level-for-hire employee, or investor IMO.
I always find it funny when startup founders believe that they are taking on more "risk".
So when the company isn't doing well, the founder lays themselves off first right? No? Hm, seems like the rank and file employee takes on the risk there...
Not to mention that it's probably a lot easier for a founder to get another job than their employees. Oh and by the way, the founder has been paid more, has gotten more stock and has probably had investors pay for a lot more nice dinners/drinks than their employees.
But yeah, the founders deserve to be compensated much higher because of this "risk", yes indeed.
As someone whose best friend started a business that is being grown organically (no seed money, no investors, no venture capitalist, just an idea), my perspective is probably different than most of HN's.
The risk he endured was literally starving. If it wasn't for us, he very well might have.
Considering I work for the biggest hospital chain in the world, I just had to seek new employment because they closed our 'division' down without notice. Security is an illusion, or temporary at best.
Risk is real. And it resides in all places of employment. You have to hedge your bets.
And I suppose I should add, "If you want to get screwed over, be an employee at a unicorn startup," based on this new information.