I am quite happy to be doing more interesting work after 10 years of slinging protobufs, hence why I have gone to work for startups recently.

But what I'm trying to say is in reality there are no lottery tickets being issued. Except maybe to the founders. Trying to frame it that way is a real problem. Actual equity agreements are mostly not much money at all. I had a founder try to make this claim to me quite recently -- it's nonsense, because I know the kind of offers he was writing up, there was no "lottery"-like outcome possible.

And it is this inequity in potential outcomes that makes the startups less attractive and also diminishes anybody's desire to work excessively hard. The potential payout isn't there. Maybe if one is an exceptional negotiator, I dunno.

Sure. The question then, is if Google, with its deep pockets will let you pursue your deep interest, better or worse than a startup dedicated to a niche.

Depends, I left Google about half a year back. One of the roles I was considering was a former employer, a non-profit, which would have been roughly a 50% compensation cut. But I loved the work, and loved the team. Ultimately I went another direction because of some poor choices they made around remote work.

The discussion that led to it was "I'd rather we have less money than you be miserable all time time" from my other half. The culture at Google isn't for everyone. I didn't fit with it (or at least in my org) and it was a constant source of frustration on both sides.