- Joining at Series C may give you an ideal combination of risk and reward. Series C startups had the highest weighted growth in our analysis, followed by Series B and A.

- At Series D and beyond, you may be taking a serious amount of risk for little upside. Many people who join startups at this stage would be better off joining a publicly-traded company and either getting paid in all-cash or in cash & public stock.

- Joining at the seed stage is high risk-high reward. Just 1 in 4,000 seed-stage startups in our analysis exited for more than $500M, and just 7 in 100 exited for more than they raised. You’re taking a lot of risk at the seed stage—though you have the most upside here.

- If your startup is backed by a top VC firm, your odds go up significantly. Numbers jumped across the board when we looked at startups backed by 30 top VCs.

As a startup employee, you don’t have a portfolio like a VC might—but you can still build one chronologically.