[nattaggart]

Well done sir.

I think you are a little dismissive of the value of tech in start-ups though. Start-ups will typically need both better tech and better distribution to displace an incumbent. In my experience, the technology side of this is especially critical. Consumer start-ups, for example, often don't have sales teams at all.

That said, budgetary constraints and optimism towards equity grants keep salaries well below 600k at start-ups :)

[starmole]

Startups a great! I worked in few and learned a lot. I just tried to address op's pretty direct question on how to make money as a dev. Startups are a very bad odds lottery for devs in the end. Even if you are amazing it does not make the startup fail or work. You might save it for aquihire though :)

[veddox]

I agree that in many startups their technological prowess plays a very large part in their success. However, most startups (as far as I am aware) do not actually "replace an incumbent". Usually it's more a case of "hey, I got this great new idea that no one has seriously approached before". They develop that idea, create a new niche-market and then get bought up by an incumbent of the main market.