It’s important to have grounded expectations in terms of your equity lottery ticket ever paying off. If it does, it often only brings you back to the same level of compensation you would have received at FAANG during that time.

i.e. Receiving a $1M equity payout (sounds like a lot, right?) after 5 years of hard work at below market salary at your startup annualized is equivalent to making the same amount of money guaranteed liquid and risk less at Google.

In this current bubble cycle, so far, there has only been one Facebook.