Options is how you actually make money at startups. The salary is only enough to make sure you can afford to exercise your options regularly and not starve to death in an extremely HCOL area.
If you value options at $0 - just join FAANG and never join a startup.
They are lottery tickets at best. Yes, sure, someone sometimes wins big, but the odds are not in your favor.
If you really do think they're worthless THEN JOIN FAANG.
I would wish you the best of luck, but sounds like you don't need it.
For every one person who got lucky and think it was because they chose well, there are nine you never hear about.
You shouldn't value them at $0.
> If you value options at $0 - just join FAANG and never join a startup.
This assumes that people only care about money and not about job satisfaction, mission, team, more scope/control over the company's future, etc. There are many good reasons to join a startup. Making money isn't one of them.
Sure, options are how you get rich from a startup, but you dont get rich at a startup by working for one, only by being a founder or an investor.
That's why I work at a FAANG:P startups exist to screw their employees
I’ve written small (<$50k) Series A cheques into companies where employee no. 20 made more than I did. That’s fine. They invested a hell of a lot more and put much more on the line. Options shouldn’t be counted on. They’re high risk. But no need to be that cynical. Plenty of people want the ones they were in the trenches with to win big when they do.
Why not just become The Rock? Dude makes way better money than Google pays.
If I thought I could pass the tech screening, and then deal with big company bureaucracy I would tomorrow. Instead, I'm a tech generalist who also doesn't mind handling business or selling, and I have a low BS tolerance. I've done ok in small companies over the second half my career, but I certainly made less than big tech.
I got in by doing a slight pivot from software engineering. But I definitely tell a couple of younger relatives who just graduated to do the monkey dance.
Basically, yes.
Most (large majority) of startups can't pay market rate salaries. So if you value options literally at $0, then a startup is only an underpaid overworked job, so skip it.
So to even consider a startup job, you need to mentally give some expected value (probability * value) to those options. The probability is going to be very low, so the potential value needs to be high, i.e. don't join without a significant option grant.
Tons of startups and mid sized companies give you an ok salary and some serious advantages.
Even ex fangs end up there because of those advantages.
FAANG pay was ridiculous, and there are also great things to learn there as well, but I value my startup time much more in terms of my own growth.
