I'm a college student, and last March attended a recruiting session by someone who'd dropped out of my college (with a friend) to found on a startup. I seemed like a good fit, so I joined as a part-time developer, with the understanding that once they closed deals with investors they'd start paying me. As a gesture of good faith, they refurbished the cofounder's first-gen MBP and gave it to me.

They just called me to say there were "some changes to how the company was going to work" and scheduled a time to meet with me in person to go over it (this Thursday). However, I know that the investors pulled out (and they don't know I know).

So I suspect that when I meet with them, they're going to tell me that they won't be able to pay me for a while, and try to make me work for something else (equity? future profits?). I'm not sure what to think about this. I've already provided ~$1500 of free labor, and as a busy college student, my time is too valuable to keep doing that indefinitely--classes, side projects, on-campus job (since I need some money...) And they want me to work for the summer too, but it seems preferable to either find a guaranteed-money job with BigCorp (I've been offered a spot with IBM), or find a more stable startup situation (where I can either be a proper founder or proper employee, and not just get the worst of both worlds).

This is all complicated by them being dependent on me. In an investor meeting they said, "$TECHNICAL_COFOUNDER has done all that he knows how to, and now tsm is going to have to lead development since he's the only one here who knows how to solve the remaining problems."

So I'm asking for advice--both about what decision to make, and about how to guide my meeting on Thursday (what demands I should make). In short, my emotional side has romanticized the notion of startups and wants to stay; my logical side is pointing out that it's not a good time of life to take big risks with small chances of success. Thanks!