[gshdg]

Remember that also the company has a 98%+ chance of failing or exiting without a huge growth in valuation.

Unless you’re spectacularly good at picking them, doing this on a repeated basis is not going to give good financial returns. But that’s not the only reason people choose to do things.

Taking a first employee role once or twice is a great way to learn a LOT about business and leadership and architecture and a ton of other things. It’s also a great way to get a title on your resume that you might not otherwise.

Some folks do so repeatedly because they prefer the environment or the green-field work or would rather build MVPs and explore new possibilities than extend or polish software that needs to be stable and well tested, etc.

Occasionally someone deeply buys into the mission.