I think you can certainly reach certain levels of wealth only be selling a company you own. But, I am not sure joining a startup you don't own doesn't give you a hugely better chance of wealth. Especially if you are not one of the first 5 employees or some very high position. Let's say you have the skills to be a VP Engineering of a startup or a engineering manager at Google.

Let's be generous and say you get there after a series A and make 100k/year startup and get ~.5% ownership subject to dilution. Compared to that Google job making 175k a year plus bonus and stock options. Let's be conservative and say total compensation of 200k. In 5 years you are forgoing $500,000 + any return on asset you made. That startup has to sell for $10 million without taking any more investment for it to be worth it.

Obviously this is possible, but it's not clear which one is better off most of the time. Like the article says- do a startup if you want to do one. Not if you want to get rich. If you want to get rich go be a quant at a hedge fund.