You Probably Shouldn’t Work at a Startup

I've worked at several as one of the first 10 that never went anywhere, but I made sure to prioritize salary+benefits over equity during my negotiation. But there's a huge range between a 10 person startup and a 50-100+ company with series C/D funding. Those can have good work/life balance, benefits, and already be "unicorn status" by valuation. I wonder how the author views those, since that de-risks the decision a lot.

After having worked at one, I'd only consider working at another if I was a very early employee (<10 employees, ideally one of the first hires). I think after that, you get a lot of the stress without much of the ownership and reward until the company is more stable.

Very well written article and I agree with most of what is being said in the article. One of the areas I would add is that when you leave a start up before it goes IPO (or gets acquired) then you need to choose either to buy your options (and pay taxes on unrealized money) or leave it out completely within 90 days. This is a huge financial burden on the employee even if the company is doing good.