[kls]

I would agree with this, unless your resume includes Bell Labs in the 70-80's, I would take the job at Google, later on it will bring serious consideration by startups that are further along in their path to profitability and better funded candidates.

[hrowthr]

To give some more context, the "startup" I'm considering isn't really so much a 5-10 person bootstrapped startup as it is a company like Dropbox, Square, Airbnb, etc.

So it's a fairly successful startup with really cool people and problems, it's well-funded, it's on a path to profitability, and it does pay a competitive base salary -- it's just not profitable right now and so doesn't offer the massive bonuses that Google does.

[codeslush]

One thing I would like to add, in addition to my earlier comment, is this: There is a time to gamble, and a time to play it safe. The best time to gamble is when you've got the money to lose, not when your mortgage/rent payment is on the line.

Even if the startup has a great chance of success, my decision would personally be to go to Google. This is with very limited info. However, what we are going through right now very much resembles what we went through during the dot.com era. If history repeats itself, then in a couple years our job choices won't be so vast. In that case, I would rather be with the company that has billions in the bank and can continue to employ me. This is a very personal choice, and one that I'm sure is causing you tremendous anxiety. I hope this helps.

[hrowthr]

Thanks! I'm pretty young and haven't dealt much with these kinds of financial issues before, so the advice helps a lot.