[droithomme]

The risk is in abandoning your good job at a stable firm working for a known, reasonable entity for a pot shot that could be just about anything and statistically will most likely fail, taking you down with it since you're being paid $60,000 below market according to the owner's own admission.

It's amazing that people don't think that is worth considering.

[tetomb]

Yes but according to the article, he wanted his normal salary and the equity. So the only part of your comment that applies is leaving a stable job for an unstable one.

This is a risk but not a big risk at all if the engineer was "one of the best engineers in his area" because he would be able to find another job easily.