Why does it always have to be low-paying? I was hired at a start-up and was paid about 15% higher than any other job I'd seen with my experience and skill-set. The increases were good and the stress wasn't unreasonable. We went from a 5-man team to a 80-person team until the company was sold to one of the biggest companies in the world (after about 5 years). My boss (who'd started the start-up retired a multi-millionaire an 45). I never got rich on it, but none of us employed there were ever paid badly, and he even made sure that we got very good retention bonuses during the buy-out. Perhaps my experience was unusual, but I wonder if more start-ups respected their workers enough to put a higher value on them if their companies wouldn't do better. There were none of us in that company that wouldn't have done anything (legal that is) that our boss asked of us, because he treated us with respect.