If you're interviewing with an early stage (read: pre-series B) startup, the founders believe you're a good fit, and they have seeded a good culture, they will be happy to let you interview every person they've hired so far.
I like to ask these people "Why did you choose this company versus any of the other ones?" and "What were your expectations about [thing I'm uncertain about], and how did your experience differ from that?"
Startups actually have more signal to offer than most big tech companies. However, the onus is on you to scuttlebut, and it's true that the risks of not doing it well are more severe.
Re: compensation, if you are able to demonstrate competence and efficacy, early stage startups will offer you a cash basis comparable to that of big tech. Of course, if your expenses have inflated to the expectation of selling big tech RSUs every year, you should expect a pretty significant "real" cut in annual income unless you walk in to another public company.
You're right that the cash compensation is often similar. But estimating the value of options is really hard! One of the better (seed) companies I considered working at was able to tell me what my options would be worth given various exit scenarios. In that particular case the company would have had to exit with a $5B valuation in order to match my FAANG compensation. The company was worth $100M at the time. When I pointed this out, the founders reassured me that they were very confident that their company would exceed that valuation :)
I like to ask these people "Why did you choose this company versus any of the other ones?" and "What were your expectations about [thing I'm uncertain about], and how did your experience differ from that?"
Startups actually have more signal to offer than most big tech companies. However, the onus is on you to scuttlebut, and it's true that the risks of not doing it well are more severe.
Re: compensation, if you are able to demonstrate competence and efficacy, early stage startups will offer you a cash basis comparable to that of big tech. Of course, if your expenses have inflated to the expectation of selling big tech RSUs every year, you should expect a pretty significant "real" cut in annual income unless you walk in to another public company.