Startup 1: joined as the first employee pretty much straight out of school. Talked to potential customers, worked on the product and overall learned lot about startups. Modest low exit some years after I left. No payout. (Europe, so not common to have equity back in the day).
Startup 2: joined the founding team of a gaming startup. The company flopped. Built and learned a lot.
Startup 3: started my own company, moved to US, raised funding etc. Learned a lot, we had to shut it down after couple of years as failed to grow the business and didn't see a way to pivot. Returned remaining funds to the investors.
Startup 4: joined another startup. One of the first 20 employees. Build a lot, learned lot. Exercised the stock when I left. The company IPOd 6 years later. $50M payout. I had early exercised some stock so some of it was federally tax free under QSBS.
Startup 5: Joined pre-IPO FAANG, got a decent salary. Learned a lot of about politics and presenting to execs. Honed my own craft and skills on the company time. $3M payout from RSU which more than half went to taxes as ordinary income.
Anyway, been lucky with two of my last companies, but I would say the earlier startups gave me skills and confidence to operate in the level I needed.
I think FAANG is nice place to make $1-2M over some years but it’s unlikely to make $10M or more.
In all my jobs there were some crunch times every now and them, but I never worked 100 hours or over the weekend consistently. After being a founder I did realize that you don’t have to work that hard for other companies.
Startup outcomes are uncertain but you can definitely affect them by choosing the right companies. If anything else, you will learn a lot likely. Time moves faster in startups, so few years in a startup might be like 5 years at FAANG, and you actually learn to build things instead of sit in meetings.