I have worked as an early employee at a startup that was then successfully acquired. In my experience it was great, although I think it did not match the situation at most startups. I think there were six people when I started working for them, as a freelancer at first, and then eventually we grew to about 15 and I joined full time.

I did not get any stock, I was 100% remote (I live in Europe and the company was in the US, I never even met any of my bosses or coworkers), and I never worked long hours.

It was also early in my career. I started as a freelancer, and this was my highest paying job until then, so I gladly took it. The work was hard (low-level and high-performance stuff), but as I said, I did not have to work over 40 hours per week. I did have meetings in the late afternoon though, and sometimes in the evenings, because of my time zone.

After we got acquired, I told them that because I didn’t hold any stock, I still wanted some payout, so they roughly doubled my salary. The work also became more corporate and there was less of the hard but interesting stuff. Eventually I left when the company that acquired us was itself acquired, and now I work for another established company for even more money.

TL;DR: the startup was acquired, I did not get a payout but it launched my career so I’m very happy I was involved.

Recently left an organization that was failing to shed the “start up mentality.” I joined at just over 100 people when two years before they had about 40. They were over 400 five years later.

They had a lot of growing pains with regard to communication. They also were a very top heavy org because all of the original employees were promoted to directors with no management experience. People spoke often about being the xth person hired. In all hands meetings.

Honestly, I’ll be avoiding them like the plague now. I worked my 40 hours a week while begging to expand the department. Left when I was put on probation for not getting enough work done. Also never accept an unlimited pto agreement. Good way to never take vacation.

Don’t do it. Can wholeheartedly say fuck startups, especially if you’re not an expert in your field.

YMMV but they’ve been an extreme version of the horrible crap that goes on in corpos; ex layoffs because why keep your senior devs when someone newer is much cheaper and the company only has a few millions untill next round of funding.