Google and startups are two extreme ends of the spectrum, and neither is that great in terms of risk-reward balance. Personally, I'd recommend joining an established, but still growing, medium-sized company. That means shortly before, or a year or two after IPO, somewhere between 100-500 employees. That kind of a place still has momentum and is still relatively generous with equity. You won't get as rich as your pre-IPO coworkers, but you'll do OK and with less sacrifice. If the company is still growing, there will be opportunities for promotion and for learning and doing a lot of cool things. Think of joining Google or Facebook when they had 500 employees. In hindsight, it seems obvious that that was a good time to join, but I'm sure that lot's of people passed on the opportunity, thinking that it was too late. So recognizing that a company still has momentum can be a bit tricky. If you are coming out of college, one easy way to test if an established company is still a good place or if it has stagnated is to do an internship there.