[tensafefrogs]

"If the company sells for a more modest $250M, between taxes and the dilution that inevitably will have occurred, your 1% won't net you as much as you'd intuitively think. It will probably be on the same order as what you might have made from RSUs at a large public company, but with far far more risk involved. Don't take my word for it though; it's pretty simple math to run the numbers for a spread of sale prices and dilution factors for yourself before joining, so do so."

This is key when you are thinking about joining a startup. If you can land a job at $BigTechCompany that pays a bonus and RSUs that refresh every year, it's likely a much safer bet and will have much lower risk.