This is addressed in the post:
> Another common objection is something like “I know lots of people who’ve made $1m from startups”. Me too, but I also know lots of people who’ve made much more than that working at public companies. This post is about the relative value of compensation packages, not the absolute value.
If I am supposed to make $1m more at Public Company over -- say -- a 10 year period, then that means my salary at Public Company would have to be $100k more per year than at Startup Company. Is the difference between startup and public really that big?
And while $300k assumes fairly high performance at a top public company, it's certainly not the upper bound.
[1] https://www.tekna.no/en/salary-and-negotiations/salary-stati...
Possibly even a little low for the Facebook / Netflix / etc tier.
Also, some companies will have target compensation bands (I know Yahoo did) where an increase in stock price will actually result in a smaller additional grant each year.
So if you’re the sort if person who’s likely to work hard at a BigCO long enough for most of your rolling RSU grants to vest, then yes, the comp difference is that big.
[0] note that MANY senior people at BigCos are NOT high performers. So beware of comparing to things like Glassdoor comp figures, which are highly likely to be coming from non-high-performers.
The continuity of a big co. can be very helpful from a salary perspective.
Another difference could depend on the nature of the individual earning that money. If that individual is disciplined and reasonably good at investing their money, taking the corporate job, living frugally and investing everything that's left might make them come out ahead. But if they're like most people, earning more will make them spend more and they'll come out behind the start-up employee who will usually immediately invest most of the windfall (either in a home or the market).
Neither route is obviously better, but it's probably worthwhile to look at the post-tax, post-spending bank balances of both sets of employees to see who comes out ahead since it's not a simple as comparing $1m to $1m.
As far as taxes, a big difference you didn't mention is that startups most frequently exit in a single liquidity event that can't be deferred (i.e. acquisition). Getting that $1MM in one tax year is much worse than spreading it out over even 3-5. At least in my locality, the difference between taxes on a $1mm windfall in one tax year vs. a senior dev salary at a place like Google is ~5%.
Not if it's long-term capital gains. The year that I banked most of my gains from my company's acquisition (sub-$1m, but just), my tax rate was substantially lower than in previous years. Paying taxes like a rich person has distinct advantages since the game is rigged in their favor.