[JoshTriplett]

The downside of a startup is that they don't have as much money to pay you, and as a contractor you don't get equity.

(On the upside, you don't get equity, and for most startups the money they pay you will be worth more than any equity ever will be.)

[Silhouette]

They don't have money at first. The ones who hit product-market fit and then want to scale quickly used to be a gold mine for good generalists though.

A few startups are run by veterans of several previous adventures who can spot when the real game is about to kick off and it's time to ramp up hiring. But almost no-one without that prior experience can hire a bigger permanent team as fast as they want to during that period of rapid growth.

Also these companies often have relatively inexperienced teams as they start to scale just because of the earlier budget limitations. They benefit from having some more experienced hands on deck for a while to stop them making dumb mistakes and help them train up their early hires who stick around and suddenly find themselves operating a level or two up the ladder as the head count grows.