[jokh]

Who cares about the payoff? Startups will still pay you a good enough salary, and if they don't why would you even consider working there? It's not like startups don't pay a salary at all.

And if a startup does pay well, why is it risky to join? Worst case scenario it folds and goes bankrupt in a year. It's not like there's a shortage of software jobs that you'll be unemployed for a long time. Also, for people who want to become founders in the future, joining a startup is their best option to learn about how businesses are built and what mistakes to avoid in building said businesses.

So not everyone is joining startups just for the payoff or to make it big. People are way more realistic than that.