[jacquesm]

If only the choices were that simple. Contributing to a start-up and doing cool work is great if the startup does well and some kind of compensation package materializes. If it doesn't then you might very well lose a bunch of time, opportunities and other advantages (hopefully you'll learn a lot, also worth something).

I went through this a whole bunch of times before something finally paid off and there was 0 guarantee that anything ever would pay off.

If you have dependents, a mortgage, responsibilities outside of just yourself and little or no savings to fall back on the risks associated with 'doing cool work' may not outweigh the relative security of doing working for some 'name brand'.

There are intermediate levels of risk as well, and those should definitely not be ruled out, it's also possible to slowly transition from one situation to another without exposing yourself to risks you can't deal with.