Or, you know, you could pick positions that require growth in skills you need to grow for your own side projects you're bootstrapping or plan on to bootstrap. I've used that strategy since college and it's worked well for me. I've had some really bad overall experiences [1] at startups here and some great ones but no matter what, I came out the other end with what I went in to get.

Maybe this way of looking things is more useful as a software engineer. I've also mostly given up on the whole idea of VC and see bootstrapping as the best way once you have the experience you want/need, the plan and the cash to bankroll it.

The reality of startups is if you're purely going into it with the roll of the dice for money, you're totally screwed. You're much better off getting experience and then jumping ship to megacorp, assuming you're good enough, to maximize real income. Or if you want to gamble or want to just do it, trying to do your own startup. Or going for experience and living cheap, then bootstrapping.

You should always be getting something more than just money out of working at a startup. If you're not, you're wasting your time.

[1] So far, worst thing is working for a startup where middle management comes from gaming industry. After 2 for 2 bad experiences, that is a deal breaker for me. In both cases, it didn't seem to work out well for the startups either.