"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." which seems to be attributed (without any sources) to John Kenneth Galbraith:
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/810.html
I've also seen it as "Under capitalism, man exploits man - under communism it's the other way around." I always assumed it was a translated Russian proverb, along the lines of: "No truth in the news and no news in the truth" (Major Soviet papers were "Pravda" (the truth) and "Izvestia" (the news).
superqd mentioned he would have made $300K more (i.e. in addition to the fixed salary he was earning) if he had bought the options. I assume that after paying for taxes, he would have still made $200K. Since he worked for 8 years, this is indeed $25K of additional income for every year. If he worked for $35/hour for 40 hours/week for say 50 weeks in a year, his total income would have been 35 * 40 * 50 = 70K. How is this better than his original job which was probably paying him say $80K or greater than $80K as fixed salary every month? It sounds like it would have put him behind by at least $10K. What am I missing?
There are many good reasons to join a startup but if the financial motivation is the main one then it's probably not the best route.
(1)Other than a feeling that I'd joined the Witness Protection Program when I fled after an engineering walkout.
(2)Offset by literally years of damaged self-esteem. Pedigree is heavily overrated - with one exception, all the famous people were pretty awful.
That's ~25K/year so if you would've worked a regular 40 hour week, 20 hours of contract work at anything more than $35/hour would have put you ahead. And you would've still had weekends, nights and vacation.