[tluyben2]

I've been yelping about this for ages but most here seem to have the same opinion as you. I will say it again; you are gambling here with probably the best years of your life. Don't be crazy thinking 1-2% in a startup will make you rich. It won't. You'll just work yourself into ill health ; something which you will never be able to restore in the rest of your life and you'll not gain much besides the knowledge that you should never do or have done this in the first place.

Please check some statistics of startups; by far most go bankrupt, the rest disappear; might be sold to another company, might just close the doors with some blahblah story of 'it was just an experiment and it failed' => was it just an experiment for you, burning 80+ hours/week for 1-2% + a few $? Even being bought sounds like payday; it's not, especially for funded companies. It's just vultures picking dead bodies.

Then the minuscule (REALLY TINY; like furiouscowbell says below; it's playing the lottery, but at least in the lottery you get to work 0 hours/week) percentage which remains will indeed make you rich for your 1-2%; shame you didn't go work there! You picked another one; even without knowing you, I know this for a fact :) It's a safe bet for me to say this.

Please don't throw years of your life away doing this; start your own or work, for a good salary at a big/solid/hip one (Facebook, Google) and go from there. Make your mark there and then use the money you earned and super team you worked with to start your own.

Edit: if it's your own startup it's (can be) a lot of fun but you know the odds going in and your startup is different! You have to believe that and that's good. But if you are just tricked into working for nothing on someone else's dream it needs to be your dream as well, and who does that for less than a significant stake in the company anyway?