Comment by garry

I generally recommend people think about it as two things: Learning or Earning.

If you are learning, you are getting something out of the situation even if it's not well paid. Don't stay there forever, or stay until you stop learning.

Then when it's time to earn: go work at a tech giant if you must, but also consider starting one yourself. Or if you can tell a startup is a rocket ship and have a chance to join, don't ask about whether you have a window seat, just do it, because those are often the best risk-adjusted returns you can get. Post-product-market-fit is an amazing time. (The trick is it is hard to tell if it's a rocket ship, of course.)

In the learn phase, I don't think it has to be about the money (though of course people have their individual needs). But in the earn phase, it is definitely about capturing the value you create.