Yeah this is really the way to go, when you're young you have a principal problem anyways. I think part of what is maybe appealing about larger equity offers is that you're in with no skin, and you have no skin to give so the math seems to work. FAANG (or any public company) is going to solve this problem for you with incentive stock plans and even employee stock purchase plans. If you're going to be smart you're going to need capital before you start going into illiquid and volatile investments anyways, let a big company solve that problem and enjoy youth.