Completely self-serving, where it is coming from, and completely wrong. An early employee at a startup will get fraction-of-a-percent equity (at time of exit, and often, at time of joining). And that overstates the amount of equity. Investors, and increasingly, management, get things like liquidity preferences. You need an exit in the hundreds of millions before that amounts to real money. Employee #5 at Google or Facebook does very well. Otherwise, you make a lot more at established industry. There are a lot of suckers out there who'll take those jobs, so I don't see them getting better.
Where do you learn more? It depends on the startup and the industry. If it's a YC startup with a pair of 21-year-olds at the helm? I'd actually say mainstream industry. Now, if you compare co-founder to call center -- definitely go co-founder, but:
1) Call center is an unusually bad job.
2) The type of person hired by a call center is unlikely to get a startup job, unless the startup sucks at hiring. Seriously.
Where do you learn more? It depends on the startup and the industry. If it's a YC startup with a pair of 21-year-olds at the helm? I'd actually say mainstream industry. Now, if you compare co-founder to call center -- definitely go co-founder, but:
1) Call center is an unusually bad job. 2) The type of person hired by a call center is unlikely to get a startup job, unless the startup sucks at hiring. Seriously.