The long con of startups is that founders want you to think you're an investor--in truth, you are, because you're investing time, which ought to be more valuable than the money of people who have scads of it--and work like you're an investor... but they're still going to treat you like an employee. It's the same dysfunctional bureaucracy of the corporate ladder, except in this iteration it's across companies, so you don't even see the true executives (VCs). There are more rungs, more pitfalls, and greater socioeconomic distances than there ever were before.

The innovation of Silicon Valley isn't anything to do with technology, and hasn't been since the 1990s. Rather, it's the disposable company. If the investors get sick of something existing, they can choose not to fund it in the next round, call their friends and tell everyone else not to fund it, and it dies, allowing them to build something new in its place. The advantages (to investors) of the disposable company are legion, but one if them is that it doesn't matter all that much if you pick a scumbag. Which is also why YC backs so many DVFs (domestic violence founders). If they're jerks who get stuff done, you can let them collect a few million before firing them and putting your buddies in executive positions; if they're jerks who don't get stuff done, then you scrap the company and fund some other DVF.